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THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


A Paramount Picture The Ten Commandments. 
MOSES REBUKES HIS SISTER MIRIAM. 





Di EIN 
COMMANDMENTS 


AGNOV ET 


._ /BY 


HENRY MACMAHON 


FROM 


JEANIE MACPHERSON’S STORY 
PRODUCED BY CECIL B. DE MILLE 


As the Celebrated Paramount Picture 
*“THE TEN COMMANDMENTS” 


ILLUSTRATED WITH SCENES FROM 
THE PHOTOPLAY 





NEW YORK 


GROSS EVbs SoD UN) ASE 
PUBLISHERS 


Made in tne United States of America 


Copyrrianat, 1924. ny 
GROSSET & DUNLAP 


FOREWORD 


THosrE who have attended the picture pres- 
entation or followed the remarkable vogue of 
Mr. Cecil B. De Mille’s photodramatic spectacle 
of ‘‘The Ten Commandments,’’ will find their 
pleasure redoubled by reading this book. Many 
others, in anticipation of viewing the produc- 
tion, will get here the full length of plot and 
character detail and background to heighten 
their enjoyment. 

The work novelized by Mr. MacMahon is 
offered as a complete romance, equally enter- 
taining to all classes, nationalities or creeds. 
The story beginnings start somewhat earlier 
than Miss Maepherson’s continuity, but are in 
harmony with it. The kindness of the scenar- 
ist and producer in giving access to their basic 
researches and historical and technical ma- 
terial is greatly appreciated. 

It has been truly said that the Bible is the 
world’s greatest treasure house of dramatic 
and romantic themes. Here the co-laborers 


first wrought and evolved the tremendous 
Vv 


v1 FOREWORD 


power that makes the modern theme of ‘‘The 
Ten Commandments”’ so vital and enthralling. 

A story as powerful and unusual as ‘‘The 
Ten Commandments’’ interests every home 
and every civilized being, for inherent in it is 
the foundation of our life, the mainspring of 
our being. 

So this is a book you will not willingly 
lay down. Moses and Miriam and Dathan— 
Martha and Mary and John and Dan and Sally 
—speak to you with tremendous force, because 
a Power greater than mere mortal agency 
works in them and through them or despite 
them! 

THe PUBLISHERS. 


CHAPTER 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


PROLOGUE: THE LAND OF GOSHEN . 1 
THE HEBREW PRINCE . ; ‘ : iG 
Sixty YEARS AFTER—.  . SRL f 
A PETITION TO THE KING . Be oes yh taaee ts" 
THE NINE PLAGUES . : Stat RU tbe 


A TRAGEDY BEFORE THE SPHINX ‘ 41 


TWILIGHT OF THE OLD Gops . . 49 
THE ESCAPE . oH | PA a i AR RANE Ge 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SEA . : SUE OE 
GHHOVAH) SPEAKSH OP ila UMe anita mtg iin Ged 
Tay COABAT Ate Cn) ; UM ee een Ate 1 
Tae Bou Gop7s) VoTARES Vi i 95 
DISASTER s : " : Le hee Os 
Is Ir tHE BuNnK? : Pee ots UN ES} 
Mary L&IGcH . : : : : el) AE 
Mary Finps A Home . . ae 
MartTHA’S RAGE AND DAN’S Cone 135 
INTERLUDE: East oF SUEZ pian pone a Keb 
THe Suick Contractor . .  . 14d 
END) OF SALUY’s: QuEsT ina 155 


DIscovERY! . i : ‘ i TOO LOY, 
vil 


Vill 
CHAPTER 
XXII 
XXIII 
XXIV 


XXV 
XXVI 
XXVIT 
XXVIII 
XXIX 
XXK 


CONTENTS 


AT THE CHURCH, AND AFTER 
WHEN THE APSE FELL— . 


STRAIT Is THE GATE, NARROW THE 
Way 


JOHN AND DAN 

Dan GoEs TO SAuuy! . 
THe WAGES OF SIN 
Mary! , 
Toe Law INEXORABLE 
LIGHT OF THE WORLD . 


PAGD 


173 
LT 


183 
193 
201 
209 
217 
225 
231 


PERSONS IN THE STORY 


IN THE ORDER OF THEIR APPEARANCE 
A 
AND THE PLAYERS WHO ENACT THESE ROLES 


IN THE PICTURE 


MosEsS (ie., he who was “drawn out’) 
AARON, his brother and chief of the Levite 
priests 
RAMESES IT, King of Kinew ent Diaraah 
of Egypt 
Miriam, the younger sister of akon wad 
Aaron ; 
AN EGyYprian Teepe 
DaTHAN the Discontented : 
Son oF PHARAOH, ap First Born aa 
“apple of his eye” 
THE WIFE oF PHARAOH 
Tue Bronze Man, Attendant of Hine me 
oi Kings . 
JOSHUA, a young man facuaraed ta com- 
mand ‘ 
Dan McTavisy, who ates ne fret ae 
piece his “Golden Calf” : 
JoHN McTavisH (“Being a carpenter is 
about all I’m good for’) , 
MarTtHa MoTavisH, exemplar of 
Covenanter piety ; 
Mary L&EIeH, a waif from the Stree 
SALLY LuNG, an almond-eyed half-Celestial 
from Pondicherry . 
ReEppING, a city Building Tieeertor in 
league with Dan 
THE Docror 
THE Outcast (“Lord, if Thou A Thou 
canst make me clean!’’) 


Mrs. 


ix 


PLAYED BY 
Theodore Roberts 


James Neill 
Charles De Roche 
Estelle Taylor 
Clarence Burton 


Lawson Butt 


Terrence Moore 
Julia Faye 


Noble Johnson 
Gino Corrado 
Rod La Rocque 
Richard Dix 


Edythe Chapman 
Leatrice Joy 


Nita Naldi 


Robert Edeson 
Charles Ogle 


Agnes Ayres 


Fy tee aa 
rai, 


ae § ¥ 
) M ee ey eat 





THE 
TEN COMMANDMENTS 


CHAPTER I 
PROLOGUE: THE LAND OF GOSHEN 


East of the ancient delta of the Nile there 
dwelt—more than three thousand years ago— 
a pastoral people whose flocks and herds and 
low habitations dotted the countryside. These 
white shepherd folk carried a tradition of 
wanderings from the banks of the Euphrates 
across Irak, Syria, Palestine, the desert of 
Sinai, and here at last they were domiciled 
under the sway of a dusky potentate, fellow 
subjects with the bronze-hued Egyptians. 

In ancient times the desert and the highlands 
frequently made impact with the centers of 
River culture. Wild storms of fighting nomads 
swooped down upon delta empires, obliterating 
the native rule and setting up military over- 


lordships of the fertile areas. 
1 


2 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


But the forebears of the people of our story 
had come as guests. In their privileged posi- 
tion the descendants had multiplied and grown 
rich. The Land of Goshen could no longer 
hold them; they had filtered into the towns, 
some had acquired fortunes as merchants and 
warehousemen, and others were high in the 
King’s service. 

The intruders—once guests—were literally 
children of Israel; their common forefather, 
Jacob, who was renamed Israel (Champion of 
God) because the Angel of the Most High had 
wrestled with him in the way. In the old age 
of Jacob, his son Joseph had won favor of the 
military Shepherd who sat on the throne of 
Kigypt. 

Joseph has been truly called the world’s first 
banker. In his capacity of Prime Minister he 
introduced the expedient of warehousing wheat 
against seasons of drouth, and his resourceful 
foresight saved millions of lives. Thus, in later 
years, through the wisdom of Joseph, the Is- 
raelites had a distinct claim on the gratitude 
of their hosts. 


Visualize then if you can the series of 
changes that led up to the Great Rift, and that 


THE LAND OF GOSHEN 8 


to our mighty theme, the giving of the Com- 
mandments. After the lapse of over four hun- 
dred years, what a different picture is pre- 
sented ! 


For the few cattle herders, harbored in the 
marches of Egypt, had grown into a mighty 
racial minority of 600,000 souls. Their pa- 
trons, the Shepherd Kings, were overthrown by 
revolution. Jealousy and distrust were engen- 
dered. Both were fanned by the spirit of ra- 
cial and religious hate. The Israelites bowed 
not down to Amen-Ra and Apis and Osiris. 
They could not be assimilated to the Kgyptian 
barbaric civilization, civil or religious. And 
they were growing, growing, growing as to 
wealth and numbers, in face of the intense 
nationalism and the waves of bigotry that 
would suppress the alien and the unbe- 
liever. 

Came evil times on the Land of Goshen. 

The speckled herds grazing the marches 
were tended by graybeards, old women and 
children whilst the able-bodied men and women 
were commandeered for State work. On vari- 
ous pretexts the fortunes of traders and arti- 
sans in the cities were confiscated, The last 


4 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


scion of Joseph was thrown out of the bureau- 
cracy. The Pharaohs (as the Kings of Egypt 
were known) were pushing ahead a vast build- 
ing program on which their slave labor was 
drafted. 

By an irony of fate the Israelites were forced 
to build two of Pharaoh’s vast Treasure Cities 
in their own Land. Pithom and Raamses— 
what monuments of blows and blood and tears 
and confiscation and killing toil those glories 
of Pharaoh became! 

Beautiful they were in the grand style of 
far-flung wall and majestic column and sculp- 
tured relief; terrifying through the tall colossi 
of god-like Pharaohs guarding their portals; 
overwhelmingly splendid in the approach down 
the Avenue of Sphinxes, great couchant figures 
half-lion and half-man, which, repeated twenty- 
four times, seemed to propound four times and ~ 
twenty the Riddle of Death! 

Eivery brick of the palaces was shaped and 
sun-dried and laid by an Israelite peon. Every 
monument of sculpture was dragged there and 
erected by their hands. At the brick-making 
and masonry, or aboard the horrible Sphinx 
wagon creaking under a five-ton load, stood 
an Overseer wielding a mighty whip. The lash 


THE LAND OF GOSHEN 5 


came down on the bare backs of the loin-girt 
workers. 

Cuffs and kicks were administered by the 
armed guards to the unfortunates the whip 
didn’t reach. The spirit of grim tragedy was 
all about, for a darker fate met those who from 
mutiny or weakened physique did not fulfill 
the tasks. Often the offender was beaten to 
death in the sight of his loved ones. . 

The policy of repression was indeed one of 
calculated cruelty. It was hoped by the 
Pharaoh and his counselors that the spirit of 
the aliens would be broken until they merged 
into the indistinguishable helotry. ... 

Strange to say, the tough-fibered ex-herders, 
inured to a life of privation and toil, withstood 
the rigors of slavery. The weak died or were 
weeded out. The strong continued to multiply. 
Instead of sinking into a common helotage with 
the Nubians, Libyans and other slaves, the chil- 
dren of God’s ‘‘first champion’? managed to re- 
tain their racial integrity. 

Pharaoh cast about for other means of re- 
ducing them. 

Infanticide was resorted to. 

When the midwives (to their honor) lied to 
the King and confessed themselves unable to 


6 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


kill the babes at the door of the womb, the 
King and his counselors sent out a general 
order to all his people re the aliens of Goshen: 
‘‘Hivery son that is born ye shall cast in the 
river, and every daughter ye shall save alive!’’ 

Unhappy Land of Goshen! That was to be 
the end of Israelites as Israelites. Within a 
score of years at most the new generation of 
potential breeders and fighters would be choked 
off, and Egypt need not be harried by the night- 
mare thought of the alien dwellers within her 
gates possibly joining with her enemies against 
her. And the daughters ultimately would bear 
to their masters Kgyptian sons, strengthening 
the blood of the older race! 

Unhappy Land of Goshen! There was wail- 
ing and desolation for the tragedies of work 
camp and domestic hearth, but there was also 
keen circumvention of a people doggedly fight- 
ing being exterminated. A great many mothers 
succeeded in hiding and saving their boy babies, 
and such an incident forms the first event in 
the life of the Commandment-giver. 


CHAPTER II 
THE HEBREW PRINCE 


‘‘Loox, Ament, see that toy boat floating up 
yonder !’’ 

‘‘Daughter of Ra, I pray thee, I see not!’’ 

‘‘Stupid! Cannot thy sharp old eyes make 
out the tiny thing bobbing up and down? So, 
turn thy head; follow the line of my arm, now 
thou canst see it. Hark! Did I hear a faint 
wail, or was it fantasy? Quick! Run to the 
Point ere it passes, and with a pole pull it in 
whatever it may be.”’ 

The speaker was a bronze beauty of twenty- 
five, a married but childless daughter of 
Pharaoh, taking her afternoon dip in a Nile 
cove. The place was well screened from water 
craft by a thick clump of flags, whilst along 
the Nile’s bank the handmaidens of the Prin- 
cess leisurely paced keeping guard; and only 
the old servant Ament accompanied her mis- 
tress into the water to assist in the ablutions. 

Among the thinner reeds towards the Point, 


the Princess had distinguished the gently bob- 
7 


8 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


bing little boat. She was delighted a few min- 
utes later to see old Ament returning with the 
captured craft, which she was holding straight 
in front of her like the butler with his tray. 

The queer ark (as they called it) was, save 
for vent holes, entirely enclosed. It was cun- 
ningly constructed of bullrushes, made water- 
proof by pitch and slime. Laughing excitedly, 
the Princess unclasped the hasp and lifted the 
cover. What she saw— 

‘‘Oo-ee! It’s a baby,’’ said the Princess, in 
soft tones. ‘‘Look, Ament, what a sturdy little 
rascal, a beautiful little Horus, and I’m its 
Isis! But he’s hungry and c-c-cold—’’ 

She took up the infant and cuddled it. ‘‘But 
look, Nurse, it’s been crying, and the big tears 
are still rolling down.’’ She carefully dried 
them. The infant gazed up at her, cooed and 
smiled. T’ears were in the Princess’ eyes now, 
and she said: ‘‘Doubtless this is one of the 
Hebrews’ children, and Ra-Amen has sent it to 
me to save it!”’ 

‘‘There’s a young Hebrew girl here,’’ sug- 
gested Ament, ‘‘who seemed to have been 
watching the ark.’? She brought forward a 
little maiden who made obeisance to the Egyp- 
tian princess and said: 


THE HEBREW PRINCE 9 


‘‘Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the 
Hebrew women who shall raise the child for 
thee?’’ ? 

‘‘Go,’’ said the Princess. She turned to her 
confidante, who had been holding the child, and 
sald: 

‘*He shall be called Moses (i.e., ‘drawn out’), 
and he shall be my son. Mayhap one day he 
will sit on the throne! Thanks be to Amen-Ra 
for this exceeding precious gift!’ 


In this tender comedy that preluded Israel’s 
terrific drama, the little maid was Moses’ sis- 
ter, and the ‘‘nurse of the Hebrew women’’ 
was none other than their mother whom the 
Princess paid day’s wages to fulfill the loved 
task. 

Sore at heart—withal happy that her son, 
now a scion of royalty, was saved from a darker 
fate—the mother, after the infancy and wean- 
ing, gave back the child to the daughter of 
Pharaoh. 

Young Moses grew up a princeling learned 
in all the ways and arts of the Egyptian court, 
a fearless swordsman, an accomplished archer, 
an acolyte observant behind the scenes of 
priestly craft and mages’ tricks. 


10 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Successive Divine Pharaohs passed away and 
were entombed in mummified immortality. His 
loved foster-mother died without reaping her 
ambition. He never openly could claim his own 
parental blood-kin. But the whisper about the 
‘‘Hebrew Prince’’ was ever in the air; the lead- 
ers among the Israelites talked to him secretly. 
At their reguest he went out to the work places 
of the people, and learned with his own eyes 
that his nation was enslaved more cruelly than 
the very beasts of the field. 

To his hot, youthful spirit the spectacle was 
maddening. With difficulty the Prince re- 
strained himself from attacking wicked Over- 
seers and hacking them to pieces—a course of 
conduct that would have brought about a whole- 
sale butchery. But, returning one day from one 
of these scenes of flagellation, he saw by the 
roadside an Kgyptian beating unmercifully an 
undernourished Hebrew laborer. 

‘‘Stop!’’ cried the Prince, intervening be- 
tween the pair. With his staff (for he was 
walking incognito) he diverted what might have 
been the death stroke. 

The brutish master faced him with uplifted 
weapon. ‘‘Who are you that dare to intervene 
twixt me and my slave?’’ he eried. 


THE HEBREW PRINCE ary 


‘‘Tam—’’ Suddenly the newcomer bethought 
him the secret mustn’t be told. ‘‘Never mind 
what I am!’’ he replied, quickly glancing about 
to see that there were no witnesses of the en- 
counter, ‘‘but if you touch him again, I’ll kill 
youl’? 

The Hgyptian struck the victim a contemp- 
tuous side blow, then was upon the stranger like 
afury. Seeing red, the Prince drew forth his 
dagger and felled him. The thrust was true- 
aimed to the heart. With but a groan or two 
the brutish slave-driver expired, even as the 
beaten victim was kissing the hem of Moses’ 
robe and thanking his deliverer. ‘‘Go your 
way,’’ said the Prince to the wretched man, 
‘‘and let none hear of what befell. ... I will 
attend to this.’’ 

After the slave had departed, the younger 
man scooped a hole in a sand dune, pushed 
the Egyptian’s carcass into it, and covered it 
up. He then obliterated the traces of blood 
from his clothing and from the scene of the 
encounter. Appalled at the shedding of blood, 
he nevertheless knew that he had struck to save 
a life, his own mayhap, the other’s certainly. 
And returning homeward he racked his wits 
to devise some scheme of creating a party at 


12 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Court that should influence the Pharaoh to tem- 
per the Israelite oppression. 

Alas, the hierarchical clique, bent on destroy- 
ing his kindred, was all powerful... . 

Oddly enough, ’twas the attempted role of 
peacemaker among his people that was the im- 
mediate cause of driving Moses out of Egypt. 

The second day thereafter, he again went 
forth incognito and spied two Hebrews fight- 
ing in a field. Approaching he said to the at- 
tacker, ‘‘Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow?”’ 

The man turned on him with angry abuse. 
Evidently he recognized the ‘‘ Hebrew prince,”’ 
and word of the event of day before yesterday 
had spread widely, despite the injunction to 
secrecy. 

‘‘Who made thee a prince and a judge over 
us?’’ said the quarreler, sarcastically. He 
came nearer, and leered into Moses’ face. ‘‘Do 
—you—mean—to—kill—me,’’ he said tensely, 
“* even—as—you—killed—the—E gy ptian?’’ 

Sorrowfully Moses turned away from the 
scene of the brothers’ strife. 

If even the field workers knew him as the 
slave-beater’s killer, surely it must reach the 
thousand ears and eyes of the Court and of 
Pharaoh. 


THE HEBREW PRINCE 13 


Presently he received direct information that 
Pharaoh knew, and had sent out emissaries to 
dispatch him. 

There was no time to lose! 

Two of the Israelitish leaders contrived an 
effective disguise and sent him with a caravan 
bound across the Sinaitic peninsula. Privately 
he decided to slip away from it betimes and 
find a habitation in the land of Midian, through 
which they were to pass. 

He was young and strong, proven in battle, 
inured to the outdoors. Could he not (like his 
ancestors) take up the shepherd’s crook, and 
in that rough career find living and refuge? 

A fortnight later we see the erstwhile prince- 
ling seated by a well in Midian, wondering what 
the future is to bring forth. 

The well in that semi-arid land was the scene 
of endless disputes. At eve fighting nomads 
would appear with their flocks and hold it 
against all comers, even the resident shepherds 
of the neighborhood who held proprietary 
rights. Woe betide, then, the Iuckless girl 
flock-tenders! They too were driven away, 
often waiting until the late night watches be- 
fore they could get to it to water their parched 
rams and ewes. 


14 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Just such an event impended the day Moses 
sat by the well. 

Seven daughters of the aged local chief and 
high priest approached with their flocks, and 
again the nomad shepherds would have driven 
them away. But this time the stranger at the 
well stood up to help them. The stranger was 
tall and muscular and well-armed. His master- 
ful authority awed the nomads, backed as it 
was by his gleaming blade and his evident 
prowess. The comely shepherdesses were 
quickly served and quickly sped. The fugitive 
Prince felt himself well repaid by their lively 
gratitude and the favor he had found in the 
eyes of the comeliest, Zipporah. 

A short time later Moses was summoned to 
the home of Jethro or Reuel their father. He 
was an honored guest at the breaking of bread. 

‘“‘Tarry with us a while,’’ said the pious 
Sheik. ‘‘Thou art a man of spirit, and we have 
need of thee.’’ 

Thus the fugitive from the face of Pharaoh 
became Sheik Jethro’s lieutenant in the part- 
shepherding, part-warring life of the Desert. 
He married the lovely Zipporah and rejoiced 
in a son. He mastered all the secret lore of 
the ‘‘priest of Midian.’’ Instead of the luxury, 


THE HEBREW PRINCE its, 


elitter and intrigue of the Court of HEgypt— 
false, hollow and rotten since founded on slav- 
ery—he was a free ‘‘prince of the desert’’ in 
the tending of Jethro’s ficcks. 


nay 
tat 


hye ny 
| iy. 


Pi DM 
AM aad 
ware de 


' 


i 





CHAPTER IIT 
SIXTY YEARS AFTER— 


Axout sixty years after these events, two 
venerable men brought promise of God’s deliv- 
erance to the oppressed slave-dwellers of 
Goshen. The strange message was as follows: 

**T, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, 
have surely visited you, have surely seen the 
affliction of My people which are in Egypt and 
have heard their cry by reason of their task- 
masters: for I know their sorrows. And I am 
come down to deliver them out of the hand of 
the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that 
land into a good land and a large, a land flow- 
ang with milk and honey... .”’ 

Imagine the first reaction of incredulity, 
wonder. and mockery in Goshen over these 
words! For nearly a hundred years successive 
generations had been habituated to slavery. 
Kiven the worship of the God of Israel was for- 
bidden. The cult was secretly practiced 
(though neglected by multitudes of the work- 


weary who preferred the sensuous excitements 
17 


18 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


of the Bull-God Mnevis), and its ministers were 
not widely known save to the elders. One of 
these spoke up: 

‘*We know thee, ancient Aaron, who art of 
the tribe of Levi and high priest of our people’s 
God. But who is this other, the bald, white- 
bearded stranger thou broughtest? And what 
sign have ye that Jehovah will put forth his 
hand??’’ 

‘‘He is Moses my brother, the prophet of 
Jehovah,’’ replied the sage addressed. ‘‘Knew 
ye aught of the Hebrew prince?”’ 

A murmur of astonishment ran through the 
assembly. Few had not heard the oft-repeated 
legend of the adoptive Prince, exiled for fight- 
ing for his people. 

‘‘God out of the burning bush,’’ continued 
Aaron, ‘‘commanded him to deliver Israel. 
Sixty years in the silences of the desert, he is 
slow and halting of speech. God hath ordered 
that I shall be the spokesman, saying unto him 
of me: ‘liven he shall be to thee instead of a 
mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of 
Grodiai: 

Awe seized the elders at the sight of the 
silent Prophet who handed to Aaron a rod. 
The high priest cast it upon the ground. Lo! 


SIXTY YEARS AFTER— 19 


the lifeless stick was transformed into a live 
and wriggling serpent. For the first time 
Moses (for it was none other than our gallant 
young hero, now grown very old) swayed from 
his rigid demeanor. He seized the wriggling 
snake by the tail, and it came back to his hand 
—a lifeless stick. 

‘‘Jahveh! Jahveh!’’ shouted the elders and 
people. ‘‘Let us bow down and worship to the 
God of the Hebrews and follow this, his 
Prophet!’’ 


It had not been a welcome task to the aged 
recluse to come out of the Desert. Himself, 
wife and sons had prospered in Midian. All 
his ties were there. Though still strong in the 
green and patriarchal vigor of eighty, he nat- 
urally looked forward to an eve of contentment 
and measured action. 

But a disturbing Inner Voice prompted to 
obey the hest of his long-time-gone young man- 
hood and to die (if need be) in the freeing of 
his people. Nature commanded what his heart 
prompted. God spake to him out of the Burn- 
ing Bush. The wind, the lightning, the sky en- 
forced the message. And Moses knew that he 
was cunning—more cunning than all the Hgyp- 


20 THK TEN COMMANDMENTS . 


tian magicians—in controlling and manipulat- 
ing the secret forces of Nature. His foresight 
of the course of the elements was uncanny. He 
performed wonders that caused his Desert in- 
timates almost to look upon him as a god. 

He could not speak eloquently, but Jehovah 
had prepared for this. His elder brother, the 
high-priest Aaron (who had lived all this while 
in Egypt) was the orator of the tribe; he was 
te be the spokesman and the sign-worker. 

The call to vengeance on the oppressor and 
the salvation of Israel was irresistible, and 
Moses answered it. He bade good-by to Mid- 
ian and the house of Jethro, taking Zipporah 
and his sons with him. In the Wilderness he 
met Aaron, sent out to meet him. They wor- 
shiped together on the Holy Mount. There 
Moses charged Aaron with the full content of 
the Divine embassy, instructing him also in the 
sions he had acquired in the Desert. They 
moved on into Goshen, where their kinsfolk 
(save Miriam, a younger sister) were long since 
deceased. 

Dead, too, were the men who had sought 
Moses’ life; dead his aforetime companions of 
the Court. ... They were as strangers in a 
strange land except for an Elder here and 


SIXTY YEARS AFTER— 21 


there who remembered Aaron as the furtive, 
retired High Priest. ... The stage was set 
for their high but seemingly impossible Mis- 
sion. ... The wonder-workers from Midian 
made good of the Elders’ assembly, and whilst 
the people prayed, entered the gorgeous por- 
tals of the City of Raamses to beard the 
Pharaoh. 





CHAPTER IV 


A PETITION TO THE KING 


“Let my people go (saith the Lord God of Israel) 
that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilder- 
ness !” 


Tx Hall in which they found themselves was 
of vast proportions and gloomy magnificence. 
Its walls were decorated with cunning picture 
inlay and fantastic hieroglyph. In the longer 
dimension two rows of fluted pillars gave a ma- 
jestic vista up to the steps of the Throne and 
beyond to a great basalt image of Man-God- 
Lion in half body. Against the herculean black 
bosom was set the reigning Pharaoh’s dais, en- 
tablatured with the dread ensigns of his roy- 
alty. 

Before the pillars commanding the first flight 
of steps two live lions paced restlessly to the 
limit of their chains, and when they roared the 
farthest confines of the palace heard the sound! 

Above the second steps, on each side of the 
dais, the huge arms of the stone Colossus ter- 


minated in couchant paws. Ilumined by the 
23 


24 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


strange diffused light which is said to have 
been the secret precursor of our Kdisons, the 
Hall now kindled into life with the dazzling 
gems and jewels of the courtiers and the 
brightly flashing lances and battle-axes of the 
soldiery. 

‘‘Make way for the Pharaoh!’’ 

The figure that entered and reposed on the 
dais while all abased themselves was majestic 
as a god. In its right hand rested the snake- 
twined scepter of Egypt, terminating in the 
lotus. 

The monarch’s elaborate head-piece was 
fronted by the ureeus, the carved semblance of 
a striking serpent. His necklace was a triple 
row of gems, flanked on either shoulder by the 
lotus. Below there depended, on his bare stom- 
ach, the sacred scarab. 

The royal arms were ablaze with jeweled 
armlets of gold, and the girdle and knee-length 
kirtle were of equal magnificence, whilst golden 
greaves and jeweled sandals, of which the points 
worked back in high circles, completed the bar- 
baric array. 

Weak men now and again had sat on the 
throne of Egypt, but here was no weakling! 
Rameses IT, the last and greatest of the monu- 


A PETITION TO THE KING 25 


ment builders, had made all Egypt and all the 
subject races ministers of his vast exploits. 
Even now the Israelites were completing for 
him the age-long labors on Pithom and 
Raamses, whilst his vaulting ambition leaped 
forward to new enterprise—temples, palaces, 
the mausoleum that should give him immortal- 
ity! Power spoke in his mighty half-nude 
frame, his bold eyes and his handsome insolent 
features—autocratic power without a trace of 
chivalry. 

What a contrast, to the outer eye, in the peti- 
tioners that approached him! 

A gleaming-eyed, unshorn old man with pro- 
fuse white locks and billowing beard, clad in a 
plain desert robe and carrying a desert pil- 
grim’s staff. With him a shorter graybeard 
as old or older, more ceremonially dressed in 
cap and figured garments, upholding an em- 
blematic rod surmounted by a triangle. 

‘“They be Moses and Aaron, chiefs of the 
laboring tribe known as Israel,’’ said the cham- 
berlain, ‘‘and crave audience of thee.’’ 

The shorter man would have abased him- 
self, but the old patriarch prevented. Anger 
gleamed in Pharaoh’s look as he imperiously 
pointed to the ground to command the obei- 


{ 


26 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


sance. But bowing only, not prostrating them- 
selves, the strange visitors came to the foot of 
the steps. The first words of Aaron, the 
spokesman, so astonished the monarch that the 
breach of ceremonial was forgotten. 

‘‘TLet my people go, saith the Lord God of 
Israel, that they may hold a feast unto me in 
the Wilderness !’’ 

‘‘Who is your Lord God,’’ thundered Ram- 
eses, ‘‘that I should obey His voice? I know 
not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go!’’ 

‘““The God of the Hebrews hath met with 
us,’’ replied the men reverently. ‘‘Let us go, 
we pray thee, three days’ journey into the 
desert and sacrifice unto Him, lest He fall upon 
us with pestilence or with the sword.’’ 

The patience of the monarch was exhausted. 
What cared he for the Lord Jehovah, a desert 
deity—he who was the divine representative 
of Amen-Ra? Plainly these impudent stran- 
gers were stirring up trouble under religion’s 
cloak. Only a little of it, and his building 
schemes might be halted. 

‘*Behold, the people of the Land of Goshen 
now are many,’’ shouted the King, ‘‘and ye 
make them rest from their burdens. Where- 


A PETITION TO THE KING 27 


fore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the Israelites 
from their works? Get ye back to your bur- 
dens! I the Pharaoh have spoken.’’ 

He turned his head, and the petitioners were 
quickly conducted out of the palace.... 


The first essay of Moses and Aaron resulted 
in more grievous affliction for their people. 


Pharaoh, quick to act, decided that a more 
rigorous slavery would subdue the hopes of 
respite or freedom. 

Hitherto the material had been furnished 
to the brickmakers and masons. Baled straw 
was brought to the workers, and, using the 
straw as a binder, they fashioned the bricks out 
of the mud of the Nile. 

‘‘Hereafter,’’ ran the edict of Pharaoh, ‘‘L 
will not give you straw. Go ye, get you straw 
where ye can find it—yet naught of your work 
shall be diminished !’’ 

Naturally the foremen of the people of 
Goshen (whom the taskmasters had set over 
them) were unable to deliver the daily tale, 
since the children of Israel spent much of their 
time in scouring the fields for straw stubble. 


28 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


The foremen were beaten by the overseers, and 
their ery came up to Pharaoh. 

The King gave them rough answer. 

‘‘Ye are an idle people,’’ announced the 
Pharaoh scornfully. ‘‘ ’Tis therefore ye say, 
Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord. Go there- 
fore now and work, for there shall be no straw 
given you, yet shall ye deliver the daily tale 
of bricks!’’ 

Now was witnessed the sad spectacle of the 
weaklings, the little children, the infirm and 
decrepit of both sexes, working all day long in 
the fields and often far into the night to gather 
the stubble for the laborers’ daily stint. Hearth 
fires went out, the toilers snatched cold victual. 
The crops grew rank with weeds, and the cattle 
were neglected. The mooing of cows, bleating 
of sheep and braying of donkeys were added 
to the wails of the humanly oppressed. With 
whips and blows the cruel overseers sped the 
unintermittent toil. 

‘‘Ye have made us abhorred in the eyes of 
Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants!’’ 
groaned the foremen to the new leaders. ‘‘Ye 
_ have put in their hand a sword to slay us. Let 
Jehovah judge twixt you and us!”’ 


A PETITION TO THE KING 29 


Perhaps the saddest note of all was of per- 
sonal affliction. 

The brothers’ beautiful younger sister was a 
burden-bearer before the Sphinxes. 

In cohort with other young Hebrew girls, she 
wore a heavy yoke around neck and shoulders. 
In hods suspended on each side, they were 
obliged to carry staggering loads of bricks. At 
other times leathern bags were attached to the 
yoke sides, and the female slaves were used as 
water-carriers. 

There was no let-up from morn till night. 
The only variant was some overseer’s harsh- 
ness, often ending in yoking the unfortunate 
offender with a draught animal to a cart, thus 
converting God’s semblance into a veritable 
“beast of burden’?! — 

Miriam was comely, large-eyed and raven- 
haired. The grinding toil had not subdued her 
flowering youth nor soured her looks. In 
a free land she would have been the cynosure 
of the bold who admire the fair, but here in 
oppressed Goshen she was trothed to a sensi- 
tive and delicate youth who symbolized to her 
the pathos of her people. 

‘“‘The water bottle!’’ shouted the overseer 
from his Sphinx wagon. 


30 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


He was a great hairy, half-nude man, wield- 
ing a mighty whip, and his thunderous voice 
made many quake. 

Miriam, the nearest slave, approached. He 
detached one of the huge leather bags, and 
greedily drank. The girl’s eye was drawn to 
her lover, pulling on the Sphinx rope a few 
feet away. With outstretched hand and piteous 
expression that said more than words, he 
begged water. Momentarily she left the over- 
seer’s side and gave him to drink. 

‘‘Back!’’ shouted that functionary, his own 
thirst quenched. ‘‘Pull her back from that dog 
of Israel, I say!’’ he yelled. 

A guard violently jerked the sister of Moses 
and Aaron away. The force of the movement 
was such that she was thrown to the ground. 
Like a roused tigress the girl recovered her- 
self and again sprang toward her lover. The 
overseer hopped up and down with rage—one 
hand shaking the whip, the other pointing an 
agitated finger at the disobedience. 

This time the attendant yanked Miriam yet 
more roughly. 

His jerks and blows stretched her half- 
stunned upon the ground. On the overseer’s 
face was tyrant vengeance. As she was com- 


A PETITION TO THE KING 31 


ing to, he bent over her with a ferocious ex- 
pression. 

‘Beware thou of crossing me,’’ he said, ‘‘lest 
haply I work thy leman to death, and make thee 
yokefellow to the ox!’’?... 

Yes, the overseer had his marked pets and 
aversions.... 

The slowly reviving Miriam could not help 
shuddering as she looked up at her gorilla-like 
Taskmaster... . 





CHAPTER V 


THE NINE PLAGUES 
“Behold, I will smite all thy borders.” 


Low as was the state of all Israel, wretched 
the plight of his blood kin, and loud the plaint 
of the headmen against the new movement, the 
Inner Voice made Moses go on. 

We must think of him as of an Indomitable 
Will to vex, harass and annoy; the chief won- 
der-worker of Egypt, versed in both the Egyp- 
tian mysteries and the desert lore; above all, 
the prophet of the true God! 

He had found God in the wilderness. The 
Almighty dweller in the smoke and fire of the 
Sinai Mount was his right arm and his sure 
defense. 

The eloquence of Aaron and the divine power 
expressed through Moses again brought the 
people together, and (though the people had 
murmured) reassured them of Jehovah’s prom- 
ise. It was now meet that Magic should be 


exerted. 
33 


384 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


The frowning Pharaoh, wondering that his 
rigorous measures had failed to subdue sedi- 
tion, consented to a trial of strength twixt the 
mages of Egypt and the skill of the brothers. 
He thought he foresaw an easy victory, discred- 
iting the self-appointed helot leaders. 

But the teachings of Jethro (in which Moses 
had cunningly instructed Aaron) Game into 
play. 

With equal facility the mages of Egypt and 
the Israelite high priest transformed their di- 
vining rods into serpents, back into harmless 
sticks, and presto! again into serpents. 

But as the serpents of the Nile magicians 
wriggled along the ground, lo, the big snake 
that Aaron had let loose seized each of them 
in turn and swallowed them! 

This was a course of procedure not given 
in the Kgyptian magical books, nor even within 
the ken of the God Memnon’s priests, who 
could make the Sun’s ray burn or slay, evoke 
voices out of the Air and perform many sim- 
ilar wonders. 

‘‘Ye are great magicians,’’? said Pharaoh 
finally, ‘‘but I will not let Israel go!’’ 

Their magic had not failed, however, for it 
had given the two wonder-workers charmed 


THE NINE PLAGUES 35 


lives. In the primitive view, ’twas little use 
trying to killa mage. Most folk believed that 
his supernatural powers defied corporeal death! 


Now started a series of disasters, devasta- 
tions and plagues that harried the beautiful 
Land of the Nile as it had not been harried 
within human memory or the carven records of 
its twenty dynasties. 

In the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, 
Moses and Aaron turned the waters of Nilus 
red. The fish died. The river stank! Potable 
water could be had only by well-digging. 

The Egyptian sorcerers duplicated the hor- 
rendous feat, and so they did with its sequel 
plague—the millions of frogs, frogs, frogs that 
came hopping, hopping, hopping out of the red- 
dened river into the homes, sleeping places and 
even ovens and bread-pans of the wailing sub- 
jects of the Pharaoh. When the river para- 
sitism had disappeared and the frogs had per- 
ished, there came a plague of lice o’er the dusty 
land, and this was inevitably followed by the 
grievous swarms of flies that Moses alone had 
predicted. 

The sorcerers could note and claim as their 
enchantment the gradual growths in the river 


86 THK TEN COMMANDMENTS 


and the march of the frog invasion, but the sud- 
denness of the new plagues baffled them com- 
pletely. ‘‘This is the finger of God!’’ they 
confessed to Pharaoh. Messengers came run- 
ning to Pharaoh with the news that whereas 
all Egypt was corrupted by flies there were 
none in Goshen! The God of Moses had put 
this sign of division betwixt His people and 
their Egyptian oppressors. 

The cowed monarch offered religious tolera- 
tion where they abode, but Moses rejected the 
half-boon. Israel must go three days’ journey 
into the Wilderness to sacrifice. 

‘‘Ye shall not go very far away,’’ replied the 
monarch, figuring that he would provide an 
army for the escort. For the first time he had 
yielded partially to the men’s demands. Like 
the preceding plagues, the fly pest died out 
after the King had sued to the desert Prophet. 
Nevertheless, Pharaoh had no real intention of 
fulfilling his word, and with respite came re- 
newed refusal. 

The disease and death of the Kgyptian cattle; 
an eruptive ailment that attacked the men, 
women and children; the violent hailstorms 
that cast down the flax and barley and ruined © 
the fruit trees; the swaths of the seventeen- 


THE NINE PLAGUES 37 


year-old locust that completed the vegetal dev- 
astation; and the Great Darkness falling on 
the land of Egypt for three days, during which 
all work ceased and the scared folk cowered 
and shivered in their homes—these were the 
strange visitations that marked the long strug- 
gle of the Pharaoh and Moses whilst the former 
parleyed and hagegled, promised and refused, 
until Moses at last in the other’s extremity 
announced the full program of his demands. 

We must go forward a little in our story to 
anticipate this crisis and clearly set forth what 
these terms were: 

All Israel must be allowed to depart with 
their goods and cattle. Yea, rich Egypt must 
fully equip them for their journey! Then—and 
then only—the strange visitations of Nature 
would be stayed, and happiness would be re- 
stored to the harried homeland and its people. 

Splitting over the question of taking the 
herds and flocks, the monarch and the Prophet 
parted. The King knew full well that the Is- 
raelites taking with them their possessions 
would never return. The State would be de- 
prived of the services of a quarter million able- 
bodied laborers, not counting the weaklings that 
gathered the brick straw. 


88 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


His enterprises would wither. 

The magnificent mausoleum that was to give 
him immortality might never be built! 

And the shame to Egypt of letting a subject 
nation of 600,000 peons make a free getaway: 
the mark of it, the disgrace of it, would be ever 
upon him, like a defeat by a foreign power. 

The proud Rameses II, shaking off his awe 
of the Great Magician, trusting mayhap that 
the nine plagues had finished Nature’s toll, up- 
raised his palms outwardly and said: 

‘‘Get thee from me, thou prophet of the Is- 
raelites! lake heed of thyself, and see my 
face no more. For in that day thou seest my 
face thou shalt die!’ 

In equal wrath the strange, white-bearded 
Wizard from Horeb slowly replied: ‘‘Thou hast 
spoken well—I shall see thy face no more!’’ 

Little thought Pharaoh, then, that there 
should be yet two more dread meetings by his 
own act! 


What Moses had done was but the faint ink- 
ling of what he was to do. Already he had 
fired the sorely oppressed for the hope and 
trial of redemption. All Israel knew him as 
the prophet of the true God. Goshen had es- 


THE NINE PLAGUES 39 


~ eaped the pestilence and darkness, the disease 
and death that had stricken the Nile lands. 
The wonders of his achievement were on every 
tongue. Slaves still, but a close-knit nation 
bound by the tie of faith in Jehovah and His 
prophet, they were about to inaugurate the 
most forward step in history. 

For the Covenant twixt God and Israel at 
Mt. Sinai is the beginning and the essence of 
civilized Law. Greater than magical wonder- 
worker, greater than primitive prophet of Na- 
ture’s convulsions (though supreme in each), 
Moses stands the revealer under God of the 
framework of our collective being. 

EKiternal Law of the Ages! 

The fundamental precepts of right conduct 
marked out, and the inexorable penalty, for 
the ‘‘wages of Sin is indeed Death’’! Such 
was the magnificent contribution of Moses to 
human affairs... . 





CHAPTER VI 
A TRAGEDY BEFORE THE SPHINX 


Tue gorgeous Treasure City of Raamses was 
nearly done, and the last Sphinx was being 
moved by Sphinx wagon to its site before the 
Palace. Word had been passed that Pharaoh 
would shortly issue from the Gate of Colossi, 
the main city gate flanked by four heroic statues 
of his ancestors. 

The huge colossi, thirty-five feet high above 
the wide pediments and of such proportions 
that the little finger was big as a man’s arm, 
faced the multitudes of toiling slaves. 

The children of Israel were doing the work 
of horses. ... 

Six long ropes were attached to the great 
wheeled platform carrying the five-ton load, 
and each was manned by fifteen or twenty tug- 
gers, whilst scores of others pushed forward 
the sides or bent to impel it from behind. 

Horribly the wagon creaked in its snail-like 
progress over the sand. Mightily the over- 


seer on the platform cracked his whip on the 
41 


42 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


tense and knotted bare backs, and raucously he 
eried: 

‘‘Haste, Ye Dogs, haste ye to finish the 
work ere He comes!’’ Z-z-zipp! The flail de- 
scended on a group of weaklings. ‘‘Throw 
them out, I say,’’ yelled the Taskmaster to a 
guard. ‘‘Throw them out, and put in those 
other fellows.... Ready! Altogether, heave!’’ 
Slowly the wagon moved forward. 

The Taskmaster caught sight of Miriam with 
her leather panniers. Wielding the flail had 
made him hot and thirsty. He summoned her, 
laid a rough hand on her shoulder, and jerked 
the nearer bag from her hands. Like an animal 
he drank—more like animal than man indeed 
he looked and acted, in his kirtle of leopard’s 
hide, Beast-Man of huge limbs and _ trunk, 
hairy chest, and ferocious features! 

Below there was a commotion midway of the 
right-hand rope. A man had fallen, overpow- 
ered by the intense exertion and heat. A dozen 
pairs of hands stretched out to the girl, beg- 
ging water to revive him. From the step of 
the Sphinx wagon she saw that the prostrate 
one was her sweetheart. Forgetting the Task- 
master’s wrath, she ran to him. 

As she bathed his hot temples and wrists and 


TRAGEDY BEFORE SPHINX 43 


moistened his parched lips, the man revived. 
She hugged him in a protective embrace. The 
enfeebled worker managed to rise and to make 
a show of resuming his task. The cruel Task- 
master had seen the violation of his orders. In 
a fury he would have dealt hardly with Miriam. 
But the necessity of finishing the job estopped 
him. Throwing the water bottle out of the 
scene, he rose and started to lash the workers. 

T'wo men helped Miriam to her feet. While 
the big brute on the cart re-started the drive, 
she had quickly slipped out of sight. But the 
violent jerk on the ropes caused the enfeebled 
lover of the girl to lose his balance. He fell 
again, this time in the direct path of the wheels 
of the juggernaut. 

‘‘Kneel to the King of kings, the Conqueror 
of conquerors! Kneel to the mighty Pharaoh 
—dogs of Israel!’’ 

It was the royal Herald shouting from the 
steps of the nearest Colossus. The Taskmas- 
ter enforced the order. His attendants beat 
down the bent backs of the absorbed or un- 
willing. The fiail flashed stingingly across the 
sullen features of Dathan the Discontented, who 
dared once to gaze upwards with a venomous 
WOOK ahhe-2 


44 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


The Pharaoh came, magnificent, begemmed, 
seated in a royal palanquin borne by sixteen 
bearers, and preceded by a double file of sol- 
diery. The Taskmaster, eager for the royal 
favor, bade the Sphinx-moving resume as soon 
as the act of obeisance had been made. All 
rose to their posts save one—the poor wretch 
in the wagon’s path. Stretched flat beneath his 
rope, he was unable to get up nor could his 
companions pull him away. 

The Taskmaster looked towards the Pharaoh 
as for a signal. That monarch had seen the 
supine figure, but there was no mercy in his 
heart. 

‘‘Tf a man clog the wheels of the Pharaoh,’’ 
said Rameses II, ‘‘he shall be ground into the 
dust!’’ 

The overseer’s savage eye lighted as he 
urged the wagon on and fulfilled his grudge. 
Miriam, the object of his hate, had returned. 

Powerless, she saw the huge wheel mangle 
her lover to death... 

Only after it had passed was she permitted 
to come close to the lifeless and mangled 
forms G27. 

‘‘Lord God of Israel,’? she prayed, uprais- 
ing her hand to high Heaven. ‘‘See the afflic- 


TRAGEDY BEFORE SPHINX 45 


tion of Thy people which are in Egypt, and hear 
ATOPY ile oa. 


The Pharaoh had a beautiful little son who 
was the darling of his eye. The last encounters 
of the monarch with the prophets of Israel 
should have prepared him for a terrible event- 
uality. The Son of Pharaoh was indeed wiser 
than he. 

As the gaunt prophets entered the full- 
panoplied Court and stood at the steps of the 
throne before the royal family, the little boy 
ran to the side of the throne and cried: 

‘“‘Mighty Pharaoh, my Father—this man 
(Moses) has tormented us already with 
nine plagues! Let us slay him, before a 
tenth!’’ 

Rameses smiled indulgently upon his son. 
He was minded (as we have said) to let the 
Israelites worship for a little in the wilderness 
if that would content them. Yet the haughty 
bearing of Moses, who stopped Aaron from 
obeisance, provoked him. 

Pharaoh rose and imperiously pointed his 
hand to the ground in sign of their duty. 

*‘T kneel but to One,’’? Moses answered the 
monarch, ‘‘the Lord God of Israel, Who hath 


46 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


smitten the Egyptians with nine plagues be- 
cause thou dost not let His people go!”’ 

The God of Israel indeed! Pharaoh looked 
away to the Altar, where before bright flames 
an Egyptian priest was invoking the statues of 
Heqt, Pasht and Harmakhis, of Apis, Mnevis 
and Anubis. The Captain of the Guard en- 
tered the throne room and pledged fealty with 
his sword. ‘‘Let more work be laid upon these 
idle Israelites!’’ ordered the King as if in an- 
swer to the prophet’s pridefulness. 

When the Captain departed, Moses mounted 
the steps of the throne. His eyes were coals 
of fire. His voice had all the portentous qual- 
ity of a judgment as he said: 

‘“‘Be warned, O Pharaoh, let us Israel de- 
part, or God will come into the midst of Egypt, 
and all the First Born shall die—from the First 
Born of Pharaoh even unto the First Born of 
the captive in the dungeon.’’ 

Pharaoh rose at the astounding message, and 
the wife of Pharaoh left her handmaidens and 
hastened over to him. She too had heard the 
direful words. She clutched the King’s left 
wrist and placed her other comely hand upon 
his shoulder, as if imploring her consort to stay 
his wrath and avert the doom. On Pharaoh’s 


‘“LHHdOUd AHL ONIMNOVILV AG NOILVOLIS ASNHL HHL ANON AO HHL 
“SJUAIUPUDUWMOTD UAT ay] ‘QANIJNY JUNOUDADA 3Y T, 








TRAGEDY BEFORE SPHINX 47 


face was defiance. Yet the coal-like eyes of 
Moses seemed to burn into the royal pair. 
Hiven sans speech his grimly set pose and vis- 
age seemed to shout ‘‘Beware!”’ 

The little boy broke the tense situation by 
running in and attacking the Prophet. 

He carried a small, elegant, child’s riding 
whip with which he lashed furiously. The blows 
fell thick and fast on the ample black robe of 
the majestical old man, who did not notice them. 

The Pharaoh’s face relaxed into the grim- 
mest little smile at the fury of his offspring. 
He gently put the boy one side, then his face 
erew stern again as he asked: 

‘““Thinkest thou that the curse of thy God 
can destroy the Son of Pharaoh—whose golden 
sandals have been beaten from the crowns of 
conquered Kings?”’ 

‘¢Yea, my God is Almighty and must prevail, 
even over thee!’’? answered Moses solemnly. 
‘Wilt thou be warned and let Israel go?”’ 

"Twas then (as told in the preceding chap- 
ter) that the King and the Prophet mooted the 
conditions of the leave-taking until at last the 
angered Pharaoh—resolute to deny the com- 
plete release that Moses demanded—said he 
would kill Moses if the disturber ever showed 


48 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


his face at Court again. ‘‘Thou hast spoken 
well,’’ said Moses, turning away. ‘‘I shall see 
thy face no more!”’ 

The little lad had watched the altercation. 

As the Prophet slowly went down the steps 
to rejoin the waiting Aaron, the boy sprang 
forward again and whipped the retreating fig- 
ure. From the top step he hurled the whip 
after the priests of Israel. ... 

The divine Pharaoh spoke. ‘‘We are rid 
forever of these vain babblers,’’ he announced. 
‘‘Let there be dancing and music!’’ 


Backward the exiting prophets looked upon 
a gay and profane scene. 

A comely band of gauzily clad musicians 
played tinkling and seductive airs. The while, 
a lissome young beauty knelt on the great pave 
before Pharaoh, then rising with upstretched 
arms, whirled ecstatic in passionate dance, the 
wide-floating draperies revealing every contour 
of her form. 

The plaint of Israel—the dread warning— 
had been completely obliterated from the hearts 
and minds of the dance-enthralled spectators. 
. .. Blind to all else, they saw not the terrible 
face of Moses. 


CHAPTER VII 


TWILIGHT OF THE OLD GODS 


“And it came to pass that at midnight the Lord 
smote all the First Born in the land of Egypt, and 
there was a great cry in Egypt—for there was not 
a house where there was not one dead!” 


Tur Plague of Death! 

What awesome images, what wailing and des- 
olation, what torture and black despair of the 
bereaved, this age-long concept brings up! 

A concept of which no faint shadow was ap- 
prehended by the modern world till the World 
War showed us. Only War (that grisly spec- 
ter) can be compared in its devastating mor- 
tality to the disease epidemic that anciently 
struck swiftly and in an incredibly short time 
wiped out the flower of a people. There was 
no way, then, of staying these germ-spread (and 
often vermin-brought) scourges of humanity. 

The death plague which struck Egypt was 
escaped by her Israelite slaves. To the Hebrew 
the event was a double deliverance. 

Lamb’s blood sprinkled that night on the 


lintels of every Hebrew dwelling—a rite en- 
49 


50 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


foreed by the command of Moses—was the sym- 
bol of their immunity. The scourge passed 
Goshen by. The hardy helots were untouched 
by its ravages.... 

Instead, all Israel was awake, vibrant and 
stirring. The power of God was at work as 
expressed through His prophet. He had gone 
direct from Pharaoh’s court to the camp of the 
leaders and had predicted the end of the 
struggle. 

The Lord would execute full judgment on 
Pharaoh and Kgypt, he told them. The de- 
stroying Angel would spare the homes and 
the First Born of the Chosen People wherever 
the sacrificial lamb was slain and its blood scat- 
tered over the door-posts. 

They must eat the meat of the Passover (as 
he called it), with their robes girded for a 
journey, with shoes on their feet, and with 
their staves in their hands; and they must eat 
it in haste. 

Kach family was also enjoined to borrow 
from the nearest Egyptians whatever valuables 
the latter might lend, particularly jewels of 
silver and jewels of gold. The awe of Moses 
and the fears of the plague-stricken people 
would result in a veritable harvest! 


TWILIGHT OF THE OLD GODS 51 


One is to think now of the country of Goshen 
this historic eve as a seething hive, almost 
ready to swarm; heads of the households mak- 
ing ready the blood-sacrifice—the herdsmen 
herding their flocks—the young folks packing 
the domestic gear—the children all excitement 
and questions as they eagerly helped—the old- 
sters levying valuables from the neighbors in 
the awesome name of Moses’ cult. The house- 
wives stopped baking bread. The leeks, greens 
and savories no longer stewed in the pot. 

After blood-sprinkling the lintels before every 
household, the families sat down to meat and 
uncooked herbs—bowing and worshiping as 
Moses had commanded, to the God of their 
fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacoby 


That midnight the Pharaoh sat in the royal 
throne room which (save the regal dais) was 
empty and deserted. He had wished to be 
alone, fighting the inner Furies which assailed 
him. Kgypt was sick. The land had not re- 
covered from the nine plagues’ visitations. 
Pestilence was abroad, so his ministers re- 
ported. The Israelites continued refractory. 
As the monarch brooded, he was very much 


52 THK TEN COMMANDMENTS 


surprised to hear footsteps, for usually none 
dared enter the presence unless when sum- 
moned. 

Far down the long corridor Rameses recog- 
nized the figure of the Bronze Man, an Hthi- 
opian who was his favorite attendant. The man 
was carrying something—what it was the ob- 
scurity of the pillared corridor made it difficult 
to distinguish. 'The Pharaoh bent his head 
again. 

The sound of steps grew louder. The Bronze 
Man was followed by the Queen and her at- 
tendants. Suppressed sobs were heard, and 
commotion—from the Hall of Osiris there came 
a wailing as of voices in the distance. 

The Bronze Man had cleared the pillars 
which partly hid him, and was before the King 
of Kings. In his arms he carried a small body. 
In a choked voice he said: : 

‘‘Mighty Pharaoh, thy Son is dead!’’ 


Dazed, Rameses received the little body from 
the attendant’s arms.... 

In a near-by corridor the Queen had sunk to 
the floor, and with her kneeling attendants was 
wailing. ... 

Like one transfixed, the Egyptian king held 


TWILIGHT OF THE OLD GODS 53 


the stricken form in his arms while one should 
count twenty, then in a strange voice spoke: 
‘‘Summon thou Moses!’? 


The Prophet was already waiting at the door 
of the palace. He answered the summons in- 
stantly, for he knew that the hour had come. 
Swiftly he passed through the corridor and up 
the steps of the throne, then, with outstretched 
arm pointing to Pharaoh’s cold and lifeless 
burden, told the tragic general calamity of 
which the death of Pharaoh’s son was a part. 

‘“‘This night the Lord hath smitten all the 
First Born in the Land of Egypt, and against 
the gods of Egypt hath he executed judg- 
ment!’’ He paused and spoke again. ‘‘Now 
therefore, O Pharaoh, wilt thou let his people 
depart?’’ 

Shuddering at the enacted doom, his hand 
averted and his features agonized, the stricken 
man replied: 

‘‘Get you forth from among my people, both 
ye and the children of Israel, to serve your 
Lord. Take your flocks and herds—and_ be- 
gone!”’ 


Moses had triumphed. 


54 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


The long sought permission was wrested at 
last, and the old Wonder Worker of Horeb 
went forth to summon the waiting host. 

But what of Pharaoh? 

The crazed father could not yet believe his 
son was beyond hope. 

On the Altar still burned brightly the orange 
flames to Anubis the Jackal; Mnevis, the be- 
loved Bull God; Harmakhis the hawk-nosed; 
Hegt the frog-headed; Pasht the lioness; Apis, 
the holy Bull of Memphis. 

Bearing his son’s body, Pharaoh carried it 
to these age-long protectors of Egypt. Gently 
he laid it down at the edge of the Altar, looking 
up questioningly at the huge statues. More 
brightly the sacrificial flames leaped up! Still 
embracing the dead body of his boy and with 
the other hand upraised in supplication, he 
cried: 

‘‘Hearken, ye Gods of Egypt! Show that ye 
are stronger than this God of Israel—and call 
back life into the body of my Son!”’ 

Alas! the animal deities heard not nor could 
they grant the prayer! Vainly, through the 
remaining watches of the night, Pharaoh peti- 
tioned their succor. 

The rosy hues did not come back to the pal- 


TWILIGHT OF THE OLD GODS 55 


lid cheeks. The lttle frame stiffened in rigor 
mortis. 

The morning dimness seemed the twilight of 
the Old Gods, powerless to restore what the 
God of Israel had stricken. Broad day broke 
upon their helpless, ugly impassivity, and 
Pharaoh’s anger waxed hot against Israel, for 
his deified images of metal and stone could 
not put life back into the loved form. 

At last the King rose, addressing the little 
figure on the altar: 

‘““My First Born whom I have loved—hear 
me! This day shall Israel be ground under 
the chariots of EKgypt—thus shalt thou be re- 
venged upon their God!”’ 

Striding across the great hall, Pharaoh 
struck the Palace gong three times. 

The effect was as of magic. 

Headed by their captain, the ever-ready 
lancemen of the royal dwelling clattered down 
the stairway en masse, their lances first up- 
raised, then abased to the King, whilst the cap- 
tain of the guard did reverence. 

‘¢Sound ye the trumpets!’’ cried Pharaoh in 
his blazing wrath. ‘‘Make ready the chariots, 
for we shall be avenged a thousand fold upon 
these dogs of Israel!’’ 


56 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


At the Captain’s command, the gleaming 
force rushed up the stairway again. There was 
much to do, and there was need of haste. 
Whilst the trumpet spake, summoning the hosts, 
and the Master of the Horse commanded forth 
six hundred fighting chariots, the tiring women 
girded the terrible King of Kings in his 
BLIIOT eee 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE ESCAPE 


“And it came to pass, even the selfsame night, that 
all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of 


Egypt.” 


Stx hours before the mighty Rameses gave 
the command to his army of chariots to pursue, 
all Israel was on the march. 

All Israel had been ready, and the word of 
Moses flew in the quick orders of his lieuten- 
ants and the speeding of his swift messengers 
to every part of the little province of Goshen. 
The objective of the host was the wilderness 
on the east, where the Red Sea sends up an 
arm to the place now known as Suez. 

‘‘Tsrael is free! Israel is free!’’ 

Miriam cried the tidings from the high ped- 
iment of one of the Colossi. Dathan roared 
it with full-sounding fury against the oppressor. 
Joshua, born to command, magnificently voiced 
the soul-thrilling message of Moses. 

‘“‘Take ye your goods and your cattle and 


all that ye have got from the Egyptians to serve 
57 


58 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


the Lord in the wilderness. Haste ye forth 
from Raamses unto Succoth, for this night God 
hath freed Israel!’’ 


Very unwarlike the Exodus must have looked 
on that balmy Spring night three thousand 
years ago. 

The rays of the full moon cast a weird light 
on the strangest pilgrimage of history. 

At its head the majestic Prophet with his 
tall gnarled staff, pointing the way to the 
moon-lit desert beyond the shadows of the 
great Avenue of Sphinxes. 

Behind him a multitude whose vastness could 
only be guessed but was momentarily increased 
by country folk and their herds coming from 
many directions. Flocks of sheep and goats; 
long double files of camels, the immemorial 
ships of the desert; innumerable kine, driven 
reluctant from their Goshen pasturages; asses 
and mules, the colts trotting beside the mothers 
and snatching nutrition at the shortest halt; 
the Israelite children and their pets, playful 
lambs and kids whose hops, skips and jumps 
were very bothersome; here and there, a bob- 
_ bing howdah showing where some rich Hebrew 
transported his folk behind curtains in camel- 


THE ESCAPE 59 


back grandeur; the bed-ridden old women in 
their wagons; the vast mass of able-bodied men, 
women and children trudging along afoot, bur- 
dened with loads of gear. 

The girl Miriam carried one of the biggest 
of these packs. She was good to the little ones 
and to the aged, helping start them on their 
way before taking up her burden. The glorious 
hope of new happiness mended her sorely 
stricken spirit, and even the dour Dathan 
seemed to share her curiously uplifted mood. 
... As for the gathered thousands of the freed 
people, they were laughing, crying, running and 
jumping in their joy. No exertion seemed too 
great, no sacrifice of home-leaving too much, 
in the ravishing prospect of liberty from their 
bondage. 


Dawn found the motley, variegated host 
struggling o’er the bare, curved slopes and 
sand hills that precede the declivity of the Red 
Sea. 

Gayly hued and beautiful the pilgrimage was 
in the bright lights of the morning, stretching 
along many a mile in wavy irregular serpen- 
tine; the colorful costumes of the folks and the 
warm color tones of the animals set against 


60 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


background of yellow desert and intense blue 
sky! But the helplessness of it. ... None 
knew whither he was going or what might hap. 

A host of unwarlike people setting out into 
the desert! What folly, what mad tempting of 
Fate it appears! 

There was need of the Wonder Worker, 
Israel’s leader, who alone could give guidance. 

The desert Prophet invoked the aid of Je- 
hovah. 

Before they made their second camp at 
Etham on the wilderness’ edge, a dark cloud 
to the eastward revealed and set their course. 

At night the same cloud flashed fire and gave 
them light. 


It would have been a quick journey across the 
northern neck of Suez to the land of Philistia 
which bordered their Promised new home of 
Canaan. 

But what chance had they—yesterday’s bond 
slaves—to withstand the proved prowess of the 
Philistines? 

Canaan (or Palestine, as we now know it) 
would have to be entered far to the southeast 
by way of Sinai. 

Were it possible that the shoals of the Red 


THE ESCAPE 61 


Sea might be crossed, avoiding the warlike 
tribes farther up? 

(Napoleon Bonaparte—the reader should be 
reminded—more than thirty centuries later 
made that difficult passage, though he nearly 
lost his life.) 

Moses under God inclined their course until 
they found themselves opposite the westerly 
arm of the Sea. 

The course must have seemed to those who 
knew the country stark madness! Behind them, 
rocky hills; to the north and south, natural 
avenues of attack in the stretch of beaches; be- 
fore them, the seemingly impassable Red Sea. 
A natural trap! The children of Israel were 
cornered. ... Or were they? ... 


‘‘And he made ready his chariot, and gath- 
ered before the great gates of Raamses six 
hundred chariots—and all the chariots of Egypt 
—and captains over every one of them.’’ 

The tocsin sounded Pharaoh’s charge. 

For hours the soldiery had been massing for 
the expedition, and at last all was ready. 

The horses ramped at the bits, the drivers 
held them back with taut muscles, the fighters 
armed themselves and leaped to the platforms. 


62 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Ag the Pharaoh in his royal chariot at the 
front said ‘‘Go!’’ the primitive battle array of 
antiquity’s mightiest kingdom hurtled itself out 
of the Avenue of Sphinxes and sped over the 
eastern sands in pursuit of the fugitive slaves. 

Little recked they for spill or collision as 
on, on, they plunged in mad haste to make the 
objective! Wrecks here and there—even the 
erisly spectacle of a jumbled up lot of men and 
horses precipitated headlong down a sand cliff 
—did not halt the general mass. Speed, speed, 
SPEED! was the all-essential—speed to catch 
the fugitives before they could seek the refuge 
of the Wilderness’ stony spaces. The broad 
track of the pursued lay in front. There was 
no mistaking the innumerable footprints. They 
had but to go on quickly, and the quarry would 
be theirs. | 

Rameses and all the soldiers bereaved in the 
terrible Tenth Plague exulted in their revenge. 
Not a man nor a man-child of the runaways 
should be spared until the full blood-lust was 
satiated! 


Panic seized the Israelitish host at the awful 
sight of the deadly chariot army bearing down 
upon them, The appearance of Pharaoh in 


THE ESCAPE 63 


arms could mean but one thing—their annihi- 
lation! They cried to Heaven in their extrem- 
ity, many surrendered to black despair as if 
already lost, even the leaders quaked and trem- 
bled and bitterly regretted they had listened to 
the voice of Moses. Panic would have turned 
to indiscriminate flight, but there was nowhere 
to flee. The galloping horses of the Egyptians, 
thundering down the sands to the camp, would 
overtake the speediest runner. 

A cry ‘‘Moses! Moses!’’ went up. 

That venerable old man, with Miriam and 
Aaron, was standing on a point of land jutting 
into the water. Eyes shaded by his hand, he 
was gazing across one of the long indentations 
of the shore, towards Pharaoh’s approaching 
host. He was calm, but Aaron was frightened 
and Miriam was weeping. 

Frantically the people crowded out toward 
the little peninsula, wailing, imploring, begging, 
praying the Prophet to save them. Thousands 
of hands were outstretched to him in agony. 
Crying children tugged for protection at their 
mothers’ skirts. The mothers’ sheer terror 
caused the children’s cries to be unheeded. 

A tall dark man of saturnine cast pushed his 
way through the wailing throng and bearded 


64 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


the Prophet. It was Dathan, and his venom- 
ous words were like the serpent’s stab. 

‘Because there were no graves in HKgypt, 
hast thou taken us away to die in the wilder- 
ness? For is not this the word that we did 
tell thee in Egypt, Let us alone, to serve the 
Egyptians? Truly it had been better for us 
to serve the Egyptians than to die here at their 
hands!’’ 

The Prophet surveyed the man ealmly, 
silently without deigning an answer. A minute, 
thus; then he lifted his face and arms to the 
sky as one in communion with his Maker. 
Glancing yet again at the oncoming army in 
the distance, he turned to the host of the people 
and proudly said: 

‘“‘Hear ye not, stand still, and see the salva- 
tion of the Lord which he will show to you to- 
day!’’ He prophesied again: 

‘‘Hear and dread shall fall upon them! By 
the greatness of thy arm, O Lord, they shall be 
as still as a stone—till thy people pass over.’’ 

Was it vaunting or was it prophecy? Or 
knowledge of Nature, and Nature’s God? 

Far down the beach, a barrage of yellow- 
red flames appeared, blocking the Egyptians’ 
path. A south wind fanned the flames into 


THE ESCAPE 65 


fantastic, mounting shapes, and rolled the black- 
gray smudge into the horses’ faces. Pharaoh 
halted his chariot, and the army of the char- 
loteers drew up behind him. Through the 
transparent orange-like fires, as the smudge 
cloud swayed this way and that, Pharaoh and 
his men could see the camp of Israel. But there 
was no way of passing the living death, and 
Pharaoh perforce stopped the advance, aghast 
at the strange barrage: when it did not shortly 
abate, he ordered rest and supper.... 

Yes, it was evening, and the Israelites in 
their camp noticed an even stranger thing. 
The sky in the east had cleared, and the heavens 
towards the Egyptians were blackened. As 
night drew on, the pillar of cloud protected the 
children of Israel, whilst its flashes gave them 
light to see. The two hosts were sundered as 
if by mountain walls! 

The Hebrews slept peacefully, awaiting the 
orders of their commander which would come 
just before the gray light of the early dawn. 

For Pharaoh and his officers ’twas a restless 
and foreboding night, worn by unending argu- 
ments about the strange nature of the phenom- 
enon and savage threats of what they would 
do on the morrow when it had passed... . 


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CHAPTER Ix 
DELIVERANCE OF THE SEA 


Aut that night a strong east wind blew and 
gradually lowered the shoals... . 

The treacherous Red Sea! 

What secrets it could tell if its age-long 
waters were articulate! Of man’s might con- 
quered and God’s power triumphant; of battle, 
sudden death, defeat and victory; of Napoleon 
himself almost entoiled in 1798, whereat the 
course of modern times might have changed 
and even World War might have been averted; 
of peaceful yoking of Red and Mediterranean 
by Suez Canal, giving Britain the way of the 
Seven Seas! More sphinx-like than the 
sphinxes, more majestic in its pyramidal power 
than the Pyramids of Gizeh confronting it, its 
bosom carried the galleys that brought to Med- 
iterranean littorals the wealth of Ormus and 
of Ind, the gold of Ophir, the frankincense of 
Arabia and the other precious things that 


pleased the divinities of Egyptian and of Jew: 
67 


68 THK TEN COMMANDMENTS 


thus a peaceful beneficent Neptune, were not 
its wild heart untamed! 

Like the awesome God-indwelling voleano of 
Mount Sinai on its jutting peninsula, the Red 
Sea’s mercy was mysterious, its violence sud- 
den and incalculable. 

Man’s might and boast were puny and vain 
beside it. 

Only the old Prophet of the adjacent Horeb 
desert—he who had walked with God and di- 
vined divine Nature—knew aught of the riddle 
of its winds and waves... . 

In that early dawn when the barrage be- 
twixt the two hosts was slowly dissipating, 
Pharaoh and his captain made reconnoissance. 

‘‘See!’? cried the monarch, pointing off in 
the distance. ‘‘These dogs of Israel are already 
girded and afoot. Gird ye quickly, yoke ye 
the horses and the chariots, for ’tis my decree 
that the people of Moses be blotted out this 
day!’ 

‘‘It shall be done, O King of Kings!’’ re- 
plied the captain with low obeisance. ‘‘Hven 
as the corn at the sharp edge of the reaping 
sickle, shall they be cut down. Your swift 
forces shall overwhelm them before yon east- 
ern sun hath fairly lit their path!’’ 


DELIVERANCE OF THE SEA 69 


As soon as the brief preparations were com- 
pleted, the Pharaoh, once again his bold im- 
petuous vainglorious self, led the van.... 
Not a man of the twelve hundred warriors and 
charioteers doubted that instant victory would 
be theirs. . . . Scarcely a battle indeed, but a 
carnage that should satiate the vengeful blood 
LiPESS EOC ay 

But Moses’s look was toward the sea, where 
the waters had shoaled under the whipping of 
the night wind. The fury of Atolus was un- 
abated. With each successive blast the waters 
raced out like a tidal bore, churning and foam- 
ing like veritable cascading walls! Miriam 
and Aaron were wonderstruck at the strange 
spectacle, the while Dathan and others of little 
faith continued to gaze northward at Pharaoh’s 
army, giving themselves up as lost. 

The Prophet’s eye for a moment swept the 
nearer and the distant scene—the host of Israel, 
and the host of Egypt—as he cried: ‘‘Set ye 
forth!’’ The caravan of a people on the march 
was afoot for its journey. The herdsman had 
rounded up the cattle, the little ones and the 
invalids were in their wagons, the packmen and 
packwomen took up their burdens. ... 

Set forth—but whither? 


70 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


The people were already at the water’s edge, 
Pharaoh’s chariots about to thunder on them 
from behind, and the long strip of beach to 
the southward was devoid of refuge. Around 
Moses they gathered as they had the day be- 
fore, huddled and frightened. 

Moses raised his arms towards Heaven. ‘‘O 
Lord God, deliver thou us, even the deliver- 
ance of the Sea!?’’ 

He lowered his eyes to the boiling maelstrom 
in front of him, and stretched his right hand 
out over it. 

Hach side the central shoal the waters had 
parted till they seemed like a wall upon the 
right hand and a wall upon the left. Between 
them, the shallow place was rapidly drying in 
the first rays of the sun. 

Veritably ‘‘the floods stood upright in a heap, 
and the depths were congealed in the heart of 
the sea.’’ 

Moses turned to the fear-struck suppliants. 
Poised like a figure of Victory, he pointed with 
grand gesture to the path of safety. 

‘‘Hear not’’—there was a triumphant note 
in his voice, albeit one of deep reverence— 
‘‘fear not to pass through the deep waters— 
for the Lord fighteth on our side!’’ 


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DELIVERANCE OF THE SEA 71 


Almost in an instant the people saw the way 
that his gesture had indicated. Stupefaction 
at the almost unbelievable miracle of it suc- 
ceeded grief and woe; then—as each realized 
that salvation was there before them—they 
broke into hosannahs and thanksgiving as they 
crowded all outlets to the Great Deliver- 
BTICEL <a 

The wide path across the shallows was now 
practically dry. It stretched, a broad orange- 
colored streak, clear to the farther rocky shore, 
and the marvel of it was that each side the 
waters still raged furiously, walling up moun- 
tain high and cascading in every kaleidoscopic 
hue of the rainbow. The long procession of 
men, women, children and their gear and cattle 
started through. In the center of that path of 
safety, they were hardly wetted by the cascad- 
ing drops. The parted Sea indeed made walls 
of protection on either hand. But the Israel- 
ites walked on dry ground.... 

At the far shore they clambered up the rocks. 
Easing the burdens from their backs, they 
helped up the cattle and the gear. And now 
burst forth the full pean of rejoicmg. Mem- 
bers of families hugged; stranger kissed stran- 
ger; some leaped and danced with joy, others 


72 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


raised songs of triumph until the rocky welkin 
rang with the glorious chant of a whole people 
offering up thanksgiving to God for a univer- 
sal death averted. ... c 

..- But Moses, by no means chanting, was 
praying the completion of the miracle. From 
a rocky eminence over yonder he saw Pharaoh’s 
host at last in motion. Here and there their 
chariots were digging into the sand made softer 
by the swirling waters. Now and again one 
of the chariots lost a wheel, putting its fighters 
hors du combat. But though the chariots drave 
heavily, still the most of them were coming on 
and on at a goodly speed, and it was only a 
matter of minutes when they would reach the 
part of the west bank directly opposite the 
parted Sea’s open path.... 

Glory be! The wind and weather were chang- 
ing with the advancing sun, now nearly high 
in the heavens. The east wind had ceased to 
blow. In place of it, a mighty breeze came 
up out of the south. Moses saw the first part 
of the answer to his prayer.... 

Plainly the host of Egypt were distraught, 
for they halted as they reached the scene of 
Israel’s exit. Already the erstwhile dry path 
was wet with trickling streams. But Pharaoh 


DELIVERANCE OF THE SEA 73 


fiercely urged them on. ‘‘Fear not this God of 
Israel,’’ he shouted. ‘‘Follow and destroy 
them!’’ His command, sped through the host 
by all his heutenants, was instantly obeyed. 
With his reckless courage he again led the way, 
this time adown the sea’s roadway, and the 
other chariots likewise dashed in between the 
walls of water.... 

Beyond the sea’s arm on the rocky shore, 
faint-hearted Aaron, seeing the onrush, again 
believed Pharaoh triumphant. ‘‘Thou hast be- 
trayed us,’’ he cried to Moses, ‘‘for, behold, the 
HKigyptians are upon us!’’ Miriam cowered 
again in rigid despair. Dathan spoke not, but 
if a look could have killed, his look of venomous 
hate directed toward Israel’s leader would 
have been deadly. But the Prophet was un- 
mindful of their reaction. Observing only the 
Sea and the encompassed host, he pointed their 
attention thither, again proudly saying: 

‘‘Hear ye not, stand still, and see the salva- 
tion of the Lord!’’ 

Moses stretched forth his hand over the 
waters. ... As the little group gazed spell- 
bound, the sea returned with terrible force. 

The walls of water rolled down upon the 
roadway. In a few seconds Pharaoh and his 


74 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


men and his horses were struggling in the flood. 

Momentarily the liquid avalanche—again 
like a great tidal bore, but this time from the 
south—descended upon them. Fighters lost 
their footing and grip, were catapulted from 
the chariots by the resistless advance. Others 
were kicked to death by the frantic choking 
horses. 

The suddenness and fury of the return gave 
no chance even to agile swimmers. ‘They were 
drowning, drowning, drowning at the bottom of 
the sea, weighted down by their armor, tossed 
hither and yon along the sea floor by each suc- 
cessive impact. 

In the maelstrom above, the bodies of char- 
ioteers—ghastly and strangled—whirled about 
in circles. The tops of the chariots were no 
longer visible. Furiously the horses struggled 
for life, but at last they too were quiet... . 
The all-avenging Sea was the grave of all, all 
—even the mightiest captains and their steeds. 

Could one have seen the final agony of the 
haughty Pharaoh, he must have acknowledged 
the eternal Justice that metes hell to the wicked 
and cruel. 

For Rameses, none of the awe and homage 
of millions availed aught now! His precious 


DELIVERANCE OF THE SEA 75 


armor, jeweled breastplate and golden greaves 
—the emblems of his royalty—but doomed him 
the more certainly. His Herculean strength 
was as the pygmy’s.... The attempt to whip 
his steeds through the heart of the avalanche 
was bootless—like driving a tallyho across Ni- 
agara! Instead, he was hurled out bodily. His 
gigantic but strangling and o’erweighted frame 
was dashed against a jagged point of rocks 
where he died the double death of drowning 
and fatal wound: to his dying vision the Law 
of Jehovah loomed awful, inexorable. 


The dead bodies of the Kgyptians floating to- 
ward the shore, the still unquiet Sea that had 
swallowed Pharaoh and his chariots, told 
Israel that God reigned, to the executing of 
his judgments and the salvation of his people. 
A great awe fell upon the host which had now 
gathered around Miriam and Moses. Uprais- 
ing their hands, they solemnly cried: 

‘“‘The Lord is our strength and song, and 
he is become our salvation!’’ 

Miriam led them forth with timbrels and 
with dances. ‘‘Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath 
triumphed gloriously. The horse and rider 
hath he thrown into the sea.’’ 


76 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


There was an ecstatic exaltation in the beau- 
tiful girl, a response to the high and holy 
passion of the moment, that marked her 
Prophetess, 1.e., leader of the hearts and souls 
of the women. 

Vivid, temperamental, with her own experi- 
ence of the depths and heights, she could play 
upon feelings as upon a harp. The lovely sen- 
suousness of her, the pagan charm that peeped 
through the piety, was an irresistible mag- 
Netieey ts 
... But a heavy task confronted Moses. 
His, to be the practical statesman of the difficult 
desert pilgrimage. His—above all—to seek the 
abode of Jehovah upon Sinai and to transmit 
the Divine commands of their Deliverer to the 
people. 


CHAPTER X 
JEHOVAH SPEAKS 


THe grandeur of Moses stands out the more 
we consider his work. 

It is the fame of other great captains of his- 
tory to have waged wonderful campaigns. For 
what? Rapine, death-dealing and destruction! 

It is the fame of Moses, on the other hand, 
to have waged a peregrinatory campaign that 
built a Nation—the laws of States—in a sense, 
Civilization itself! 

If one may compare the sacred with the pro- 
fane, the labors of Moses may be likened to 
those of our heroic covered wagoners of the 
1843-49 period who traversed thousands of 
miles of desert and wilderness in order to break 
ground for new communities on the Pacific 
shore. 

Like those grand captains of the Western 
trek, to him the lives and safety of the Caravan 
were entrusted. ... Greater than they, he was 


the first of the Pioneers! 
v7 


78. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Food, water, defense, pilotage, religion, law 
and order: these essentials of the new life of 
nomadism were absolutely up to the Leader. 
Without him, the folk would perish! 

With him, they had security and sustenance, 
and received the ordinances of the true God, 
the observance of which would enable their 
children and children’s children to dwell to- 
gether in settled society. For ‘‘man shall not 
live by bread alone.’’ The Law of the Ages 
must be found and obeyed, else human Society 
becomes corrupt, anarchic, vile: the world per- 
ishes! 


‘‘In the third month came they into the wil- 
derness of Sinai and camped before the Mount, 
and Moses was with the Lord on the Mount for 
forty days and forty nights.”’ 


The old Wonder Worker drew near to the 
Source of his strength. 

From the cult of that Nature God (in which 
the wise Jethro had inducted him) he had de- 
rived the skill that outfaced the Nile wizards 
and the interpretation of natural signs that 
could foretell plague, flood or cataclysm. 

He had met God, on the side of that very 


“SSHLHHdOUd AHL WVIMIN SV YOTAVI ATIAYLSH SSIW 
‘SJUIUPUDULWMOD Ua ay 7 ‘24njI1 J JUNOULDADIT PY 


4 








JEHOVAH SPEAKS 79 


mountain, in the Bush that burned and was 
consumed not! 

He had wrestled with the Lord in the way, 
and the outer manifestation enforced the 
prompting of the Inner Voice that bade him 
rescue his brethren out of Egypt. All through 
the long struggle against Pharaoh, through the 
exodus and the deliverance, the inspiration of 
Jehovah had guided him, and now he was about 
to be initiated into the awful mysteries of His 
dwelling place and witness His dread workings 
that symbolized Nature’s punishment of those 
who transgress the eternal Laws.... 

‘And the thunderings, and the lightmngs, 
and the noise of the trumpet, and the moun- 
tains smoking, and the sight of the glory of the 
Lord, were like devouring fire.’’ 

Awed were the people as the Leader, staff 
in hand, mounted slowly step by step, up to the 
dread scene. 

Panic-stricken by the fear of the fiery Sinai 
belching death upon them, they removed them- 
selves and stood afar off. Far up the moun- 
tain could still be descried the now tiny figure 
of the Prophet, leaping crevasses, toiling over 
rocks or seeking foothold across a slippery in- 
cline. . . . Soon he turned the corner of a large 


80 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


rock face, and was lost to view. . . . The clouds 
above the Mount grew blacker. More frequent 
lightning from the heavens lit up the pyramid 
of smoke with strange effect. Sinai cast up 
ashes and crimson flames. The roar of its 
belching seemed almost articulate with the ex- 
pressed warning of the Deity. ... Many fell 
on their faces, crying, ‘‘It is the voice of Je- 
hovah!’’ As before the natural wonder at the 
Red Sea, the people worshiped the God and 
reverenced the Prophet. 

... From the full fury of the scene of liv- 
ing death at the crater’s edge, Moses sought 
refuge on a ledge backed by huge and almost 
vertical walls of solid stone. The storm cloud 
came nearer and burst into flame. Cowering 
against the rock, he prayed: ‘‘O God, reveal 
Thy will—and save Thy servant!’’ For mo- 
mentarily it seemed that the fatal dart of the 
sky must transfix! But as the lightning broke 
in such awful proximity, it appeared to have 
letters of fire, and to the vision of Moses the 
words (in Hebrew) almost instantaneously 
formed and faded: 

“THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS 
BEFORE ME!?’’ 

... Lhe fiash ended with the terrific crash 


JEHOVAH SPEAKS 81 


of a riving thunderbolt, punctuating the hiss 
and roar of the Mount’s eruption. Over- 
powered and almost stunned, wishing yet 
further revealment and yet holding out his 
hands against the impending death, Moses 
waited. ... 

The cloud came forward again... A sec- 
ond flash broke with resounding accompani- 
ment. ... Again, Moses saw in it Jehovah’s 
word: 

“THOU SHALT NOT MAKE UNTO THEE 
ANY GRAVEN IMAGE!”? 

Moses the wise visionary, Moses the wonder- 
worker, Moses the devoted follower of the God 
of Sinai, knew then that he had received an- 
swer to prayer. His first fear had changed 
into astonishment, and that into rapt ecstasy. 
He, the Prophet, was to deliver the will of the 
Lord! Praise to the Ruler who had decreed the 
eternal guidance! 

. . . Moses upraised his hands in thanks to 
the Giver of All Good. Already the first Com- 
mands were engraved on the tablet of memory. 
But as Moses looked at the vertical rock tower- 
ing beside him, the light shed by the Deity had 
outlined, shoulder-high, on the dark and seem- 
ingly immovable granite the perfect configura- 


82 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


tion of twin tables of stone! . .. The Prophet 
seized a sharp pebble from the stony débris at 
his feet, and started to carve.... 

The wind gradually died, the hghtning flashes 
ceased. The belching of the great Crater had 
temporarily subsided, only the tall pillar of 
smoke told of its subterranean menace. 

As long as it was day, the old Prophet con- 
tinued at his work. 

Starting from the right-hand corner of the 
right-hand outline, he cut the letters one by 
one. 

Each aleph, beth and gimmel slowly and ac- 
curately formed! It was infinitely slow and 
laborious work, not even a chisel but a random 
rock point his sole tool, whilst the skyey eagles 
circled round o’erhead in sheer puzzlement at 
the presence and actions of this strange human. 
But never did Moses intermit the task. After 
a few hours’ rest in the night watches on his 
hard rock-bed of the granite ledge, he was up 
with the dawn and carving the words of the 
Deity on the solid stone face.... 


Jehovah spoke, yet eight more times... . 
THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF 
THH, LORD: THY. GOD: IN VAIN. .....°He 


JEHOVAH SPEAKS 83 


came in the thunders and the lightnings.... 
REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY TO 
HHP IT HOLY.... He was an effulgent 
flame, but His face could not be seen. 
... HONOR THY FATHER AND THY 
MOTHER. ... He limned the Red Command- 
ment oc LHOUs St ALT ONO Tsk Viste ies 
And put the brand of scarlet on the corrupter. 
... THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADUL- 
TERY. He set the foundation of personal 
right and property. THOU SHALT NOT 
STHAL. ... He put the eternal stigma on ly- 
ing to another’s hurt....THOU SHALT 
NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS. ... Lastly 
forbidding jealousy and hate, the deadliest foes 
of communal happiness.... THOU SHALT 
NOT COVET! 


Moses communed with God for forty days 
and nights. He was as truly en rapport with 
the Almighty during his laborious task as in 
the brief times when his vision saw the Laws 
in the sky. As at the earlier date of his first 
revelation at Horeb, the Inner Voice was al- 
ways prompting. 

Came a day at the end of this long com- 
munion when the lightning did strike! ... 


84. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


The Tablets on the rock face had been com- 
pleted. Moses’s task was done. The spaces 
were filled, and the primal Rule of Life was 
finished. Not by lettered word this time, but 
by sheer bolt from the storm sky, was the per- 
sonal mandate uttered! 

A curvilinear lightning stroke that spared the 
Prophet clove into the canyon face and cleft 
the stone of the engraved Commands from their 
base, as cleanly as the work of a chisel! For 
a moment Moses stood astonished. Then rev- 
erently, with both hands, he removed the Twin 
Tablets from the rock wall, and, lifting his head 
toward the eminence of Sinai, prayed for guid- 
ance. The Mount was again in smoke and fire. 
Great storm clouds were gathering, and Na- 
ture menaced in one of her wilder moods. 

‘‘Get thee down from the mountain,’’ spoke 
the Mentor within. ‘‘For thy people which 
thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt have 
corrupted themselves! .. .”’ 


CHAPTER XI 
THE CABAL 


Power turns the head of its brief possessors, 
and this was the case of Aaron, Miriam and 
Dathan. 

Moses whilst absent on the Mount had left 
his brother the high priest and his sister Miriam 
the prophetess, to direct the people. Dathan, 
the ever discontented and jealous was close to 
her, for—since they both had shared the visi- 
tation of Pharaoh’s wrath—that saturnine fig- 
ure had been her confidant. 

The tinder to his spark was everywhere. It 
was easily found and quickly lit. Dathan went 
about among the people, fanning their griev- 
ances. ‘Truly the ninety days of the Wilder- 
ness had been a long catalogue of hardships! 
For the wells and the sweet waters of the Nile 
tributaries, the bitter water of the desert; for 
the satisfying Egyptian fleshpots savory with 
leek and garlic, the unleavened bread and the 


manna; endless journeys under the scorching 
85 


86 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


sun, the successive stages of which were marked 
by every sort of privation; no homes, no little 
comforts, only the seeming mythical hope of a 
Promised Land and the practice of an ascetic 
cult whose Deity never showed to mortals in 
visible semblance of wood or stone or metal! 

Here they were at last, had been for many 
days, camped before the quaking mountain of 
this Fire God, to whom His Prophet had gone 
up and not returned. 

What if the fires of his Creator had swal- 
lowed him? If he never came back— 

Dathan whispered of certain Egyptian gods 
who were less exacting. Longings for the old 
Animal Worship were re-stirred. Jahveh (or 
Moses) had led them a rough way, but the 
sacred emblems of their old homes might bring 
good fortune. Visible at least they were, and 
warmly sensual in their rites—the people 
looked back with regret on the wild pagan 
carnivals, coarse but gratifying, that had alle- 
viated the Bondage. 

The rumor of Old Cults revived spread from 
camp to camp and from tribe to tribe. With 
fury and insistence it grew as it proceeded. 
It became a roar as the multitudes flocked to 
the seat of the Judge of Israel where Aaron 


THE CABAL 87 


bore sway. The vast Congregation overflowed 
the natural canyon in which his dais was cen- 
tered, and its temper was that of the Beast 
Mob, ugly and menacing. 

‘Away with Jehovah!’’ 

‘<Seek we Gods of Pleasure!’’ 

‘‘This Moses has fled!’’ 

‘“We know not, care not, what has become of 
him 17? 

‘‘Up, make us gods that shall go before us!’’ 

Dathan exulted. The outcome of his plot- 
tings had resulted just as he had planned. He 
counseled Miriam: ‘‘lorbear, gainsay them not 
—watch the event, and even thou mayhap shalt 
be their Queen !’’ 

Aaron was sorely distrait. He knew the de- 
mand for idols violated the revelation from 
the God of Horeb that Moses had brought— 
knew he was the Prophet’s keeper and pledged 
to fulfill his Law: yet the Mob spoke in a mood 
that would not be denied. 

“‘See!’? cried Dathan, pointing to the front 
ranks where the idol-seekers already were 
brandishing weapons. ‘‘See,’’ he cried, ‘‘they 
seek thy life! 

‘‘Content them if thou canst, lest we three 
perish. Make but the one idol,’’ he said cun- 


88 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


ningly, ‘‘till the frenzy passeth, and all will be 
as before!’’ 


Very unmartyrlike was this Aaron. The 
gloss of Dathan decided him. Was it not the 
business of the Priest to minister what was 
wanted—and save his own skin?... Aaron 
appeased the people, saying: 

‘‘Break off the golden earrings, which are 
in the ears of your wives, of your sons and of 
your daughters, and bring them to me.’’ 

The multitude knew the meaning of that! 

They were to have a golden god out of the 
material of their own jewelry. For three 
months had these precious articles been in their 
possession—the spoilage of the rich homes of 
the Kgyptians—the idea of converting them 
from gauds into gods pleased them vastly. 

Suiting the act to the word, they began strip- 
ping off the jewels from their bodies and out- 
stretching their hands—loaded with the orna- 
ments—to the dais platform. 

Dathan was now the accepted lieutenant and 
spokesman of the High Priest. He was 
haranguing the crowds, telling them to keep 
the gems, but to turn in all the gold. Miriam, 
who admired him, joined in the occasion and 


THK CABAL i 39 


acted as collector. Holding high the choicest 
specimens of the booty—wonderful necklaces 
and bracelets and rings—she coaxed further do- 
nations by her lovely smile and her melodious- 
voiced persuasive speech. ... 


The cabal against Moses and the Law was 
now in full swing. Although unwilling at first, 
the force of circumstances drove Aaron to be 
its chief minister. The same posture of events 
marked out the beautiful, voluptuous girl as 
its high priestess. Behind them stood the 
eraftier Dathan, scheming hidden designs of 
his own to rule (through Miriam) the nomad 
State. 


The next scene in this nightmare of a nation 
gone astray after false gods is a wizard’s 
ecauldron—the melting tank of liquid gold— 
with the weird figures in chiaroscuro grouped 
around it at night. Aaron was there, with his 
mallet; Miriam, still seeking more gold to 
throw into the pot; Dathan, conniving and 
conspiring, the guiding spirit of the im- 
piety. 

Busily the hewers of wood stoked the fire, 
skillfully the goldsmiths used the pincers and 


909 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


paddles in handling the liquid, for approach to 
its sizzling, glaring whiteness meant death. 

Ladled out in smaller pots, it was poured 
into forms. When cooled, the resultant plates 
had the rough semblance of animal head, neck, 
back, belly, sides and members. 

The priest Aaron hammered them into more 
lifelike shape on the framework or skeleton 
which the carpenters had provided. 

The image when completed was five feet high, 
gross in its beast caricature, withal possessed 
of a certain rude power. 

The barrel-like body rested at an angle on 
rump and sprawling hind legs, and was up- 
raised at the front by enormously elongated 
fore shanks. The gaping mouth, black nostrils, 
and empty black holes for eye-sockets, imparted 
a brutish and vacant look. From the skull of 
the golden image rose a golden shield-shaped 
standard of its godhead, on which Aaron chis- 
eled its name and potency in characters of 
Heyptian hieroglyph... . 

While yet warm from the furnace and the 
blows of the hammer, Miriam was its devotee. 
The strange girl caressed its long flanks and 
rubbed its sprawling legs with the coils of her 
hair. ... The sensuousness of the new wor- 


THE CABAL 91 


ship overmastered her. ... She was to be 
the female hierophant, the chief corybant 
rather, of the orgy that on the morrow would 
celebrate its coarse embodiment of the fecunda- 
tive principle of Nature. . . . Dathan looked at 
her—in her newly started sense excitement— 
with hungry eyes... . His passion for the girl 
was intense, but it was second to his secret 
ambition. ... What if love and ambition both 
had their fruition to-morrow!... 

When the task was done, Aaron summoned 
all the false leaders of Israel to see his handi- 
work. Joy over the accomplishment of the 
Image was tumultuous. The men danced be- 
fore the statue, attributed to it all the mercies 
that the all-wise unseen Jehovah had vouch- 
safed to them. ‘‘These be thy gods, O Israel,’’ 
they said, ‘‘which brought thee up out of the 
Land of Egypt!’”’ ... Preparations for build- 
ing an altar were already afoot, for Aaron 
made proclamation that next day there would 
be a feast to the new God. 

The revelry was interrupted by the stalwart 
Captain of Israel, who had just heard of the 
nefarious enterprise. Joshua, true soldier of 
Moses, was astounded. He could hardly believe 
that the followers of Jehovah and his Prophet 


92 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


could so soon lapse into idolatry! ‘‘What 
meaneth this?’’ he demanded of them in a voice 
of stentorian rage. 

The men regarded him with dark and scow]l- 
ing looks, but the high priest Aaron, pointing 
to the inscription above the new Deity, slowly 
and sonorously read: 


MNEVIS 


BULL GOD OF EGYPT 


I that give increase of children 


and herds, I that make ye 
valiant in battle 





‘‘This is the new God that the People com- 
manded, and which to-morrow we serve!’ 

Infuriated, the strong War Captain of Israel 
rushed to the Image, trying to wreck it with 
his stout battle-ax. ‘‘Seemeth it a small thing 
to you,’’ he had cried, ‘‘that ye worship idols, 
forsaking the God that brought you up out of 
bondage?”’ 


THE CABAL 93 


But fifty pairs of hands were upon him from 
behind, disarming him of his weapons, over- 
powering him, pinning him down so that re- 
sistance was fruitless. They bound Joshua 
hand and foot, and took him out from the 
Deity’s outraged presence. . 

In the night Joshua succeeded in loosing his 
bonds. He fled up the mountain to warn Moses 
of the coming corruption. 

But all through the camps proceeded the bus- 
tle of herding animals for the sacrifice, of get- 
ting precious wine bags out of store, of food 
levy and of cooking fires, of washing, purifica- 
tion and new raiment, for was not the morrow 
the glorious Feast of the Golden Calf? 





CHAPTER XIT. 


THE BULL GOD’S VOTARIES 


“But the people had forgotten their God, and were 
set on mischief and corruption, and with noise of 
singing and clashing of cymbals, they stripped them- 
selves—and bowed down and worshiped the Golden 
Calf.” 


THe night fires had roasted the huge bar- 
becues of meats supposed to be sweet savors 
to the nostrils of Mnevis. The instruments of 
primitive music were ready. The wine had been 
drawn into pitchers and jugs for pouring into 
the cups. Aaron and his acolytes were in sacer- 
dotal raiment, and the people showed their new 
finery though they well knew there would he 
little use for clothes once the high jinks began. 

The Calf was carried in state, high o’er the 
heads of the populace, by ten burly burden- 
bearers. The high priestess headed the fan- 
tastic processional. 

A kind of loose cloak, fastened at one shoul- 
der, swayed with her quick movements and gave 


ravishing glimpses of her gorgeous spangled 
95 


96 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


kirtle and her finely molded limbs. Her glori- 
ous blue-black hair flowed in billowy tresses 
adown her back, even below her hips. On her 
bold and beautiful features there was a wanton 
expression, and ner sapphire eyes gleamed with 
triumph. 

‘‘Bow down, bow down, abase yourselves,’’ 
cried Miriam, ‘‘to the great God of Increase!”’ 

The corybantes all around her, slim danc- 
ing girls clad in little but waist cloths and 
breast bands, kneeling, bent their heads low to 
earth till the Idol (if god he was) saw naught 
but bare backs! Beyond the circle of the girls, 
most of Israel was flattened out before the 
Beast. 

Fawning on the Calf, the ‘‘Prophetess’’ 
mounted part way of the ladder leading up to 
the low altar where the Idol’s progress had been 
halted that he might savor the odors of the 
cooking fires. 

Turning, she partly knelt and, with hands up- 
lifted in wide appeal, cried: ‘‘Arise! Drink 
of the winecup, sound the cymbals, beat the tim- 
brel, for your Bull God cometh to his place of 
power !”’ 

The people needed no urging. The prostrate 
host was up in a flash—all upstretched hands 


THE BULL GOD’S VOTARIES 97 


instead of flattened backs. The girls sounded 
the musical instruments, or eagerly accepted 
the wine that was proffered. Swains lifted 
their favorites on their shoulders, others ex- 
changed public endearments, for the rule of the 
Bull meant that sex inhibition was banished! 
Slowly He was being moved to his high sta- 
tion on a jutting rock eminence, which had been 
carpeted with the skins of wild animals for his 
sacred bovine feet. 

Up there a huge kettledrum was being 
pounded in herald of his approach. Aaron and 
Dathan—both elaborately robed—were up there 
too, waiting to receive the Deity. Miriam had 
found place on the front of the carrying plat- 
form that bore Him. One arm around the neck 
of the grotesque creature and the other out- 
stretched to Aaron, she presented a picture of 
vivid and lawless beauty. ... 


The sense-hungry Beast Mob—fit devotee of 
the Mob Beast—was getting drunker and 
drunker. Men seized their girls like satyrs. 
The laughing, teasing trollops made but mock 
effort to resist. The queens of beauty were ele- 
vated in swings above the multitude. They 
were proud of their charms, reveled in the pro- 


98 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


miscuous kissing that greeted their ascent and 
descent. Foolish drunkards kissed the head, 
neck and feet of their common inamoratas. It 
would have been very funny if not so hideous 
and so tragic. ... 

. -- But up on Sinai a lonely old man was 
being hailed by one of his last followers. The 
old Prophet clutched the Tablets of the Laws 
in his two hands. Already he had been fore- 
warned by God that the children of Israel were 
corrupting themselves. ... 

The stalwart, brown-bearded Joshua ap- 
proached the descending Prophet. ‘‘There is 
a noise of war in camp,’’ he said, pointing to 
the direction of the revelry. 

‘It is not the voice of them that shout for 
mastery, neither is it the voice of them that 
ery for being overcome. But the noise of them 
that sing, do I hear!’’ 

The words of Joshua but confirmed Moses’s 
fears. From his lofty eminence he could desery 
a swarming and a reveling down in the valley. 
From the tumult of it, the sound of barbaric 
instruments and of orgiastic chanting could be 
heard. 

‘‘Let us descend!’’ said the Prophet. ‘‘Me- 
thinks Heaven has already marked out idola- 


THE BULL GOD’S VOTARIES 99 


ters for destruction! ...’? Yes, old Sinai was 
quaking again, and the storm clouds were very 
DIAGKE Ga). 

The beautiful girl was in her triumph along- 
side the highly set up, flower-garlanded Golden 
Calf. The multitude were fascinated by her 
opulent beauty. Here was a prophetess that 
should reveal the full glories of the Bull! They 
abased themselves at her edict in groveling 
worship, but as they arose a dazzling sight met 
their drink-infuriated eyes! 

For Miriam had unfastened the long cloak 
that partly hid her form, torn off the kirtle 
around her waist, and stood before them the 
naked mate of the Bull! 

There was not a stitch on her save the nar- 
row hip cloth, two swelling breastplates and a 
necklace. Gloriously her opulent limbs, grandly 
framed torso, strong white arms, and head with 
its crown of blue-black hair stood revealed. 
She was what the Greeks would have dubbed 
Cytherea, the Romans, Venus, and we of mod- 
ern times, Fleshly Love! 

The nude girl took a brimming winecup from 
an attendant. Pouring half of it down the wide 
black mouth of the Beast, she drank the rest. 


100 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Fire was in her eye, the lust of the flesh in- 
spired her. Turning to the outstretched hands 
and bodies of the Israelites, she cried in dulcet, 
coaxing tones: 

‘Come, worship ye the Golden God of Pleas- 
ure, for the god of Israel heareth not, neither 
doth He see!’’ 

She footed it in a wild measure before her 
Deity, lost to sense of self, expressive only of 
the abandon that would submit—and clutch 
eagerly after—the embraces of the He-Master. 

It was the signal for a sex-dance the ob- 
scenity of which has not been exceeded in his- 
tory. Men and women joined in figures inter- 
pretative of the orgy of lust that was to fol- 
low. 

No sex-imagination of that primitive people 
was beyond what they tried and did, and ever 
in the lead was Miriam, fawning upon her 
Beast, rubbing its legs and flanks, contorting 
about it in her ecstasy. As the dance died 
down she was stretched unconscious at its feet, 
supine in her abandonment, as helpless as the 
worm that has spun its cocoon! 

Said the revelers: ‘‘She has wedded the Bull 
God!’’ gazing with awe upon the hypnotic 
power of the Golden Beast. Soon again the 


THE BULL GOD’S VOTARIES 101 


tide of mirth and lustfulness was in full swing. 
... Lhe dancers broke into smaller groups. 
. .. Mate sought mate. ... In many a corner 
swains poured sweet nothings into sweethearts’ 
ears, and the queens of beauty were being 
pulled down from their lofty eyries to fulfill an 
Israelitish holiday. ... 

The cunning Dathan forbore to approach 
Miriam in her ecstasy or to touch her when 
supine. He knew the animal-ward passion must 
spend itself, and she must seek a human 
lovers)3is 

At last, with returning consciousness, the girl 
raised her eyelids. She saw her adored Calf, 
raised herself to a sitting position where, in 
the aftermath of ecstasy, she could fondle it. 
... Dathan slowly approached. ... He laid 
one hand upon her unresisting shoulder, and 
said: 

‘‘The People shall ever worship thy Golden 
God and make thee Queen—with me, thy Min- 
ister !?’ 

The lover gradually entwined his other hand 
about her form. He was warm and pleasant, 
even hot to the touch. Right hand clasped left 
hand around the firm, voluptuous mid-body. 

With a gesture of yielding, Miriam clasped 


1022 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


the head of the king-like lover. She raised her 
full lips in the motion to kiss.... 

But Dathan, looking at her hand, had seen a 
sight that suddenly palsied every natural in- 
stinct. 

Instead of meeting her lips, he flung his head 
back to avoid them! His face was white, and 
his members were shaking. 

Unclasping the girl quickly, he pointed to 
her fingers and in a voice of doom said as he 
rose ghastly and shivering: 

‘‘Behold thy hands! 

‘“‘Thou art become a leper—Unclean! Un- 
clean !’’ 


CHAPTER XIIT 


DISASTER 


“Who is on the Lord’s side? ... And there fell 
of the people that day about three thousand men.” 


Tue revelation came so unexpectedly—the 
finder of the stigma so quickly made his escape 
—that Miriam could not realize what happened. 
Her sickly and vacant smile looked on the knots 
of revelers whom she had incited to their re- 
cent frenzies. The gaze lowered to her hands, 
and slowly the awful truth of Dathan’s word 
infiltrated to her brain. 

The backs of both were scarred with the dis- 
figuring white patches of leprosy! 

The HKgyptian asp head of her three-ringed 
golden bracelet pointed directly to the sores. 
There were six or eight of them on each hand, 
unmistakable, foul, the first eating away that 
precedes the ravaging of the incurable malady 
on vital parts. 

Leprosy! ... The girl’s smile froze into 
agony.... The Blood Taint of moral and 


physical dirt. ... Sobs shook her frame.... 
103 


104 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


The death-in-life, the slow and lingering pun- 
ishment of Nature to them that are defiled! ... 

The revelers looked different now. ... They 
were obscene satyrs and wantons, pursuing an 
orgy of disease and death. ... Through lep- 
rous fingers held out as if to repel their lustful 
carnival, Miriam saw them shudderingly.... 

The girl, who had been couched on a lion hide 
before the front legs of the Calf, staggered to 
her feet, wrapping her mantle about her to con- 
ceal the shame of her nakedness. ... The 
Beast too looked different... . Gone was his 
golden majesty, gone his symbolism of the Pro- 
creative power. ... He was an ugly and soul- 
less hulk, a puppet and a caricature, vile imple- 
ment of a vile cult. ... The stabbing thought 
of her own tragedy smote the stricken girl 
again. 

She sought refuge, escape, anywhither—to 
flee her priestess role, to escape from the Bull 
God orgy herself had wrought. ... 

... But an extraordinary change had come 
upon the revelers. Caught as in the very mo- 
ment of abandoned passion, they crouched, or 
lolled, or stood embraced, like beings turned to 
stone! The faces of the hussies on the swings, 
of the girls and lemans ensconced in high cran- 


‘ 


DISASTER 105 


nies of the canyon, seemed petrified by fear. 
In the general scene below, every mouth was 
agape, eyes seemed protruding in fixed white 
horror from sockets! 

... The spectacle that had wrought this ex- 
traordinary change was the tinily outlined but 
distinct figure of a venerable old man, appear- 
ing at the top of the canyon a few hundred feet 
above and behind the station of the Calf. 

‘‘Moses! Moses!’? The words flew from 
tongue to tongue till all knew and were afraid. 

‘‘TIt is the prophet Moses returning from 
Sinai!’’ 

The venerable old man was carrying the 
Tablets of the Law. 


‘‘Save thy People, I beseech thee! For they 
have done an abomination—and Aaron hath 
made them naked unto their shame!”’ 

Thus a friend of Joshua’s, an eye-witness of 
the orgy, had implored, as panting for breath 
he had run up to Moses and Joshua, who had 
reached the lower flanks of the mountain. 

Far down the steep slopes he pointed to the 
Calf and the dancing. 

As they clambered down the rocks, every 
step brought the view nearer. 


1066 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


The old Leader who had braved Nature’s 
fury for forty days and nights to win of the 
Law and engrave it on stone, saw the Law of 
the true God, Nature’s stern inhibitions against 
wickedness, outraged during the very making! 

He knew—Miriam also knew now, the people 
were soon to know it—that the penalty was in- 
evitable. 

‘Woe to thee, O Israel! Thou art undone, 
for thou provokedst thy God to wrath!’’ 

The wages of Sin is Death! 

For Jehovah was preparing his vengeance. 
The heavens said it, and the wind—as mighty 
as that which divided the Red Sea—was begin- 
ning to exert its unseen power to rising hurri- 
CATION OY ie 


A terrible figure he stood at the head of 
the canyon. The down-sweeping wind impelled 
the words of his voice, making them articulate 
to the farthest part of the assemblage: 

‘*Ye have made you gods of gold. There- 
fore, ye are not worthy to receive the tablets 
of the one God!’’... 

With a powerful gesture he cast the Tablets 
forward and brake them beneath the Mount. 


DISASTER 107 


.«- Lhe Holy Commands slithered far down 
the mountain, fell at the feet of the Golden 
Calf, and fragments of them fell on the people 
down below. ... Moses’s anger was hot.... 
To the Bull Calf’s votaries below, it seemed as 
if the anger were a devouring flame.... 

... Yet one crawling figure mounted the 
heights to his eyrie and lay half-swooning at 
his feet. . 

She recovered herself and raised piteous, 
half-scarred hands to her brother. 

‘<?Tis I, Miriam,’’ the figure cried. 

‘‘Cleanse me, I pray thee, for I have wor- 
shiped idols and become a leper!’’ 

Moses helped her up to the eminence right 
back of the Golden Calf. ‘‘Thou hast sinned, 
God alone can adjudge the penalty!’’? He 
raised his hand to high Heaven, as if to invoke 
the judgment of a just God.... 


Again the bolt from the blue struck, riving 
the Golden Calf by its forked sheet lightning 
and plunging its trunk-severed head among the 
votaries below! In passing, the stroke felled 
Miriam, leaving her a lifeless corpse! The 
hideous death-in-life was ended. God in His 


108 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


merey had snapped the tie of the Death 
Spectre, giving her surcease of pain.... 


‘¢And all Israel that were round about fled 
at the ery of him, and fell upon their faces.’’ 

The wind had become a devouring hurricane! 

With it were mixed the winged lghtnings, 
and the fiery, hissing lava rolling down from 
another shoulder of the mountain into the 
middle of the canyon! 

Far in a corner Aaron and Dathan were 
fending off the crazed Bull Worshipers who 
sought their lives.... 

Aaron fled to his brother. ... 

For Dathan, there was no escape. 

The men with their weapons came at him 
angrily. ‘‘Thou hast brought destruction upon 
us, with thy gods of gold!’’ Some poked. him 
with their cudgels, others sliced him with their 
sharp knives. He fell, a victim of ambition to 
falsely rule. ... His jealousy of the Prophet 
of God was stilled forever. ... 


Moses knew that he had triumphed. But 
there was no triumph in the eye of the Law- 
giver. His sister Miriam lay dead at his feet. 
His brother Aaron was a beggar for mercy and 


DISASTER 109 


a fugitive. Thousands of the recalcitrant 
people lay cold in death at the foot of the dis- 
severed statue, victims of the lightning bolts, 
the searing ashes and the cyclone. He knew 
that the stubbornness of the survivors would 
keep them for forty years in the Wilderness, 
till a new generation should grow up of greater 
courage and better mood to fight! Knew, too, 
that he must die and be buried on Mount 
Pisgah, without obtaining possession of the be- 
loved Promised Land: 


“And the dark rock pines, like tapers tall, 
Over his bier to wave, 

And God’s own hand, in that lonely land, 
To lay him in the grave,— 


“In that strange grave without a name 
Whence his uncoffined clay 

Shall burst again, O wondrous thought! 
Before the Judgment Day— 


“And stand with glory wrapped around 
On the hills he never trod, 

And think of the strife that won our life 
With the incarnate Son of God!” 


"Twas a hard and strait way, the path of 
Jehovah’s righteousness, but he had followed 
it, faithfully, ever since he had cast aside the 


110 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Egyptian priestly vestments to seek the God 
of the desert places and the still, small voice! 
He had brought Law and Justice into the 
world with the high and holy affiliation; had 
redeemed a nation of bondmen, and engraved 
the Eternal Laws of our social being. Inefface- 
able, inexpugnable they were; for though he 
had smashed them on the heads of the offend- 
ing people, they were graven on his heart and 
conscience, and could be graved on stone again. 
Jehovah, at his plea, would turn from the de- 
struction of the whole people, would show Him- 
self in merey and lovingkindness! Because, to 
every one that repenteth, the gate of return 1s 
open, and there is no vilest sinner but can make 
his peace with God! ... His ways are past 
finding out, yet all His paths are peace... . 
The unconquerable soul, attuned to the good- 
loving Spirit of the Universe, can confront 
Heaven above or Hell below with equanim- 
Teenie 
... We must leave Moses at the sorry task 
of gathering together the loyal remnant of 
Israel. Most of the idolaters perished. The 
others repented, and were forgiven. The Bull 
Worship vanished from the popular rites 


wNVd LIVHL WHdWNaWnad ‘GOO AO GYOM AHI S.LI,, 


"‘SPUIMPUDIUMO?D UAT ‘QANZIUT JUNOWUDLD YT 


Pe ee 








DISASTER 111 


through the dread memory of Heaven’s venge- 
ANTICO ss 

The last one sees of it is the Idol dethroned 
and the late votaries of the Bull sunk in death 
for their flaming Sin.... 


; 
i the ah th aay 
tal) s 
iia 

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Pang Re 
A Pia a V's 


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iy it 





CHAPTER XIV 


Is IT THE BUNK? 


* * * And the Lord gave unto Moses * * * two 
tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the 
finger of God. * * * And Aaron said * * * Break 
off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your 
wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring 
them unto me. * * * And he received them at their 
hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he 
had made it a Molten Calf; and they said, These be 
thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the 
land of Egypt. 

* * * And it came to pass, as soon as Moses came 
nigh unto the camp, that he saw the Calf, and the 
dancing; and Moses’s anger waxed hot * * * and 
he took the Calf which they had made, and burned 
at in the fire, and ground it to powder. 

* * * And there fell of the people that day about 
three thousand men, * * * 


‘‘Aun that’s the BUNK, Mother! 

‘““The Ten Commandments were all right for 
a lot of dead ones—but that sort of stuff was 
buried with Queen Victoria!’’ 

The speaker was a nervous and energetic 
youth, facing a severe-lipped little mother and 


a ‘‘ereat big kid’’ of a matter-of-fact brother, 
113 


114 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


across the parlor table of a San Francisco 
home giving into a carpenter shop. Between 
them lay a large family Bible open at mid- 
HixoOduss chs 

The happenings of this modern story, affect- 
ing the lives of six persons who each to his or 
her own wav of thinking loved or hated or 
ignored the ancient Commandments, took place 
in the years following the world cataclysm. 

They were ordinary folks, not the mighty 
nor fashionable of the earth. The little home 
was severely simple. The regular Sunday 
afternoon rite of Bible reading was in prog- 
ress, and Dan McTavish found it a\pest! But 
for it, he might have been enjoying a game of 
pool at Kelley’s. 

His brother John, in listening to the chapters 
from Exodus, has heard a fascinating romance 
and shows it in his face. But Dan, nervous, 
impatient, fiddles idly with the fringe of the 
funny old-fashioned table cover till he can no 
longer hold in, then bursting forth: ‘‘BUNK! 
That sort of stuff was buried with Queen Vic- 
toria!’’ 

‘It’s the word of God, Danny,’’ replied his 
mother, Martha McTavish, severely. She was 
small but impressive, vital and Old School in 


IS IT THE BUNK? 115 


her rigid faith, the blood of a long line of 
Covenanters flowing in her veins. 

‘‘Tt’s the word of God, Danny,’’ repeated the 
Bible-loving mother. ‘‘Ye’ll go a long way 
without it, and yet ye’ll come short of what 
ye seek, for the foot of the wicked is upon the 
quicksand and death and destruction shall be 
their portion. Remember that, Dan.’’ 

‘‘Your eternal Bible readings will drive me 
dotty, if that’s the bad end you predict!’’ re- 
plied the thoroughly exasperated Dan. 

‘‘Better study—and obsairve—it now than 
burn in brimstone in the hereafter.”’ 

“Oh, this is too much, you harp and din this 
into us every day, make Sunday afternoons a4 
nightmare with eternal Bible readings, and for 
what?’’?’ Dan Mc'T'avish’s voice rose almost to 
a shout. He was getting thoroughly worked 
up. ‘‘For a pack of foolish tales about the 
Jews and a lot of old Commandments that 
haven’t anything to do with to-day. The Ten 
Commandments can go plumb to H—. As for 
the Golden Calf, here’s mine!”’ 

A spirit of devilish mockery seized the youth 
of twenty. Standing up, he suspended his Cali- 
fornia watch charm from a shelf; below it, up- 
ended a lighted cigarette on an impromptu in- 


1146 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


cense burner that was just a dinner spoon; 
sank to his knees, with folded hands, and 
mumbled to Lord Gold Piece an unintelligible 
prayer, in ridiculous caricature of the Cove- 
nanter worship. 

‘<The Children of Israel can have their Calf 
of Gold or their Jahveh, whatever they like,’’ 
he said, getting up. ‘‘My only God is the 
golden eagle, the real yellow, milled fellow 
that can make us rich and happy—get him I 
will, I don’t much care how; the other God 
you have brought us up on probably doesn’t 
CXIB tee 

‘“Silence!’’? cried Mrs. McTavish, into whose 
wan cheeks a slow red anger had crept. ‘‘This 
is my house, and ye’ll not blaspheme God in it 
—pray God, yourself have not committed the 
Unpardonable Sin and been damned eternally! 
Now go!’’ She stood and flung open the door, 
her other hand extended and finger pointing 
the exit out into the rain. Mother McTavish 
was blazing. 

Dan, startled and partly cowed, snatched up 
his cap, pulled up his coat collar and departed. 
Martha McTavish had a way with her at times. 
She had brought Dan and John up in the 
‘strait and narrow,’’ had slaved for them 


IS 1T THE BUNK? 117 


as the sole provider after her husband’s death 
and had received their implicit obedience to 
her Auld Kirk ideas until the schools and the 
newspapers and new fangled book learning (as 
she expressed it) had ‘‘spoiled the lads.’’ 

Dan, gay, insouciant, was the open rebel. 
John, the steady-going, adhered to family 
ideals, but without bigotry. He couldn’t be 
an inflexible Covenanter if he tried. And so 
when fiery Dame McTavish cooled down and 
the red of anger left her cheek he remon- 
strated : 

‘You can’t make people love God with fire 
and brimstone, Mother. You’ve been trying to 
make Dan fear God, not love him.”’ 





CHAPTHR XV 
MARY LEIGH 


THE sportive brother sought his evening 
meal in a wagon lunch-room where the young 
"Frisco chaps of his ilk often consorted. Dan 
was already a mixer and a hail-fellow-well-met. 
He knew every ‘‘copper,’’ and the boss of the 
local ward already had an approving eye on 
him. In the lunch wagon was a pal with whom 
he at once fell into eager talk. Boy-like, he let 
his coffee cool and left his sandwich untasted 
until he had devoured the district’s word-of- 
mouth news. 

His back to it, Dan’s frugal repast stood on 
the narrow counter of the lunch car before an 
open window. 

A young girl, wet and cold, carrying in her 
arms a woebegone little terrier, passed along 
the curbing outside and sniffed hungrily at 
the inviting odors of frying frankfurters. Our 
heroine, Mary Leigh by name, with a kind of 
despairing hope, felt in her pockets for ‘‘chicken 
feed.’’ Two pennies, not even a thin dime! 


She looked momentarily to a group of young 
119 


1200 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


‘¢sheiks’’ under the street corner awning whom 
she had just passed. They were at their reg- 
ular Sunday afternoon rite of sidewalk con- 
versation and ogling. Several had winked at 
her, one had accosted her: ‘‘Sweetie, come take 
a walk!’’ while the rest had guffawed. She 
had fled by. ‘‘Ugh!’? A wave of disgust came 
over her in the momentary backward look. 

Not a sheik there but would stake her to a 
meal and all the fixings! A waif, but decent, 
Mary mentally recoiled from their dirt. Just 
then her wistful eyes eee the open window 
and the sandwich. 

She crept rather than walked to it, her eyes 
now wolfish and her gums slavering. ‘‘Sh-h-h! 
Tiny,’’ she admonished the little dog trembling 
with excitement in her arms. Taking a firmer 
grasp on Tiny with her left hand, she showed 
a white, wan little face just above the edge of 
the window. Her right hand was stealthily 
extended to the plate. As she saw the back- 
turned Dan still engrossed, the right hand cov- 
ered the sandwich and hurriedly withdrew. 
Then Mary ran, ran as fast as her limbs could 
carry her. 

‘‘Stop thief !’’ 

Dan had turned just in time to see the 


MARY LEIGH 121 


emptied plate and a little figure scurrying off. 
‘“‘By golly, a gal stole yer sandwich!”’ yelled 
the second lunchman, dashing out of the door 
into the misty storm. Not he to stand idly by 
whilst customers are riffled! Tearing up a 
furious racket and rapidly collecting a crowd 
of pursuers, the catapulting lunchman followed 
the fleeing Mary across the Municipal Center 
with shouts and yells for the police. 

Laughing, Dan followed the chase. ‘‘ ’Tain’t 
the sandwich,’’ he told his pal, ‘‘but just to see 
the face back of it!’? He was egging on the 
pursuers now, outdistancing the heavy-footed. 
‘Come on, folks, how about a little pep? Run 
DkesSame ails tom law anyoorderwu By 
gemini, we’ll need another ’Frisco vigilance 
committee yet!’’ 

The girl (despite her hunger) was as quick 
and sharp-set as Dan himself! Speeding to the 
shack-built area west of upper Market Street, 
she turned a corner and saw salvation in the 
entrance of a carpenter shop with the friendly 


slen: 
WALK IN 


122 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


She crouched on the small open porch a sec- 
ond or two, shaking off the wet, then, hearing 
the increasing cries and footsteps along the 
street, answered the invitation, walked in and 
closed the door behind her. ’Twas just time. 
The crowd whirled by and out of our picture, 
having lost the scent. Through the door Mary 
could hear their retreating racket down the 
street. Then all was still. ... 

The place in which Mary found herself was 
the McTavish carpenter shop, though, of 
course, she had no means of knowing her hosts. 
It was messy, but well lighted and warm, and 
through a half-door at the back Mary could see 
a living room with the table set for supper. 

Presently a sturdy young man who looked to 
be about twenty leaned over the boarding and 
gazed at the queer visitant, one arm hugging 
the terrier and the sandwich still in her right 
hand. 

She was pretty, whoever she was—pretty, 
though bedraggled! 

Sturdy John McTavish came out into the car- 
penter shop. They faced each other. He was 
puzzled and smiling, she debating to devise a 
yarn and finally deciding to ‘‘make a breast 
Ola tea, 


MARY LEIGH 123 


‘‘T haven’t eaten since yesterday!’’ said 
Mary breathlessly. ‘‘And as I was passing 
Dugan’s lunch wagon a ‘hot dog’ ran out and 
bit me!’’ 

She held out the sandwich to show him, her 
eyes wistful and her face in a brave little comic 
smile as if to say: ‘‘Could you blame me?’’ 

John looked at her with tenderness. So 
young and so pretty and in such rotten luck! 

‘“T’ve been out of work for five weeks,’’ she 
continued, ‘‘down to my last copper, and Tiny 
here hasn’t had any more than I’ve had. Mary 
Leigh is my name, really and truly;’’ adding 
ruefully, ‘‘If it hadn’t been for a mean step- 
father up in Marysville, where I come from, 
I’d never lit out and sunk to be a ‘lady 
Dim = 

‘‘But you’re not!’’ replied John earnestly. 
Too shy to pat her, he gently stroked Tiny, 
who seemed grateful for the caress. 

‘Come with me,’’ said John to the girl, ‘‘and 
we'll see what we can do.’’ Opening the small 
door, he escorted her into the living room 
where Mrs. McTavish was carrying in the 
things for the home meal. 

‘his kid hasn’t a cent in the world, Mom!’’ 
was the way John put it. ‘‘Won’t you invite 


124 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


her to stay for supper and give her a bed to 
sleep in?”’ 

Martha McTavish’s blue eyes softened. She 
scrutinized the ‘‘kid’’ carefully through Bible- 
reading ‘‘specs,’’ and when she had taken them 
off her eyes there was more than a suspicion 
of moisture. 

‘‘Certainly she can stay!’’ said Mother 
McTavish. She gave the girl an enfolding hug. 
John had appointed himself custodian of the 
httle terrier, which snuggled in his arms. The 
waif was removing her hat and shabby coat, 
and there was joy in her face. 

About this time the girl-chase exhausted it- 
self and Dan remarked to his pal he guessed 
he’d stop at the house a minute on his way 
back. 

‘‘Wait for me while I get my coat. Mom 
threw me out to-night, so I won’t be long!’’ 
But Stevie Bohannon (that was his pal) had 
an unexpectedly long wait under the soaking 
eaves! 

As Dan entered the carpentry shop looking 
for his overcoat, he was met by John, his face 
aglow, and saying: ‘‘Before you leave home, 
Danny—let me show you what the storm blew 
in!’’ He led the unwilling Danny into the din- 


MARY LEIGH 125 


ing room. Mother McTavish wasn’t there, but 
Mary was. 

The confronting of Mary and Dan was a 
ludicrous moment. Mary would have liked to 
sink through the floor, John was more mysti- 
fied than ever, but Dan saved the day by a bit 
of byplay. Looking reproachfully at Mary, he 
pointed to the solemn framed Commandment 
on the wall behind her: 


THOU SHALT NOT STEAL! 


He took down the outraged law and replaced 
it with ‘‘its picture to the wall.’’ All three 
laughed. Mary and Dan shook hands, and in 
the mutual meeting and explanations Dan, 
Mary and John became firm pals. 

‘‘Nobody believes in those Commandment 
things nowadays,’’ said Mary, pointing up to 
the panel with a wink, ‘‘and I think Elinor 
Glyn’s a whole lot more interesting !’’ 

Mother McTavish, bearing in the last dish, 
interrupted the ‘‘pal-ing.’’ 

‘¢ John, you and the young lady may come 
to supper,’’ she said pointedly, eyeing the re- 
turned prodigal severely. 


126 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


‘‘Come on, Danny,’’ appealed John. ‘‘Tell 
Mom you’re sorry!’’ 

Their new sense of palship was so strong, 
the girl so attractive, the hot viands on the 
table so tempting, all combined to break down 
Dan’s defiance. He made the due apology, and 
all four sat down to table... . 


CHAPTER XVI 
MARY FINDS A HOME 


Tury sat at the little round table: Mother, 
nearest the kitchen; then, the faithful John; 
next, Mary, in a huge breakfast robe the boys 
had lent her; farthest, Dan, with careless coat 
collar still upturned. But before ‘‘the eats’’ 
could be attacked, Martha McTavish raised a 
warning hand. ‘‘Grace before supper !’’ 

Four heads bowed as the Mother supplicated 
Heaven, yet two pairs of eyes were open and 
roving. 

‘¢... And bless the Stranger within our 
gates,’? prayed Mother McTavish, with the 
touch personal. ‘‘Guide her feet in the 
strait and narrow path!’’ The roving eyes 
of Dan and Mary sought each other, exchang- 
ing a wireless. The little advocate of Glyn and 
the defier of Moses seemed to say to each other 
sans words: ‘‘We-e-ll, this IS the bunk!’’ 

Mother McTavish straightened up, opened 
her lids, and looked around (as pious old ladies 


have a habit of doing) to note whether the 
127 


128 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


countenances were appropriately reverent. 
Dan had frozen into passivity, Mary was meek 
and lamb-like, and John was grave too. All 
right! 

‘‘We’ll be very glad to have Miss Leigh make 
her home with us until she finds work,’’ said 
Martha McTavish, thus formally approving 
Mary’s entry into the household. 


A bright little trick like Mary Leigh—full 
of fun and joie de vivre, slangily clever, yet 
warm-hearted, and already with the allure of 
enchanting features and lithesome form bud- 
ding into ripeness—would certainly brighten 
up any dull home! 

But to the two brothers she was a creature 
of delight, and adoration found many means of 
expression. "T'was ‘‘Mary this!’’ and ‘‘Mary 
that!’’ whenever there was a moment to be 
spared from square or foot rule, adze, chisel 
or handsaw. In fact, the home circle revolved 
around the ex-waif, who was so helpful and 
affectionate to the mother, Martha, that she 
did not dream of crossing the boys’ attentions. 
And—miracle of miracles! even Dan ‘‘stood 
for’’ the boresome religious readings, the 
family prayers, and the other rites of this Old 


MARY FINDS A HOME _ 129 
School ‘‘Bible family.’? Only, Dan once forgot. 

Because one Sunday afternoon a few months 
later showed what an astonishing effect laugh- 
ing brown eyes can have upon a household! 
Dan was slicked up, and John likewise. <A cer- 
tain extremely preoccupied air might have 
been noted about the sturdy brother. He was 
in his ‘‘Sunday best’’ of solid black and was 
evidently treasuring something, a tiny object 
he often took out of his vest pocket and as 
frequently replaced. He had evidently been on 
a trip to the florist’s too, for a neat nosegay 
reposed in a glass on his chiffonier. 

Nervous and forthright Dan was with Mary 
in the carpenter shop. They had found a little 
old victrola and a bunch of records with a fox 
trot on top. 

**Oh, let’s have a dance!’’ said Mary, her 
brown eyes sparkling and her face roguish and 
eager. 

The delighted Dan put on the fox trot, 
started the machine, and swung into his little 
partner’s inviting arms. 

They trotted up and down the floor to the 
music, his arm firmly around her; hers, that 
should have touched his shoulder, encompass- 
ing his neck and caressing his glossy locks. 


130 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


The fire of mutual passion seized them with 
the bodily rhythm. Their faces came closer 
and closer. Dropping the grip of the other 
swinging arms they embraced and kissed—a 
long, mouth-to-mouth kiss that sealed their 
love. 

“Mary!” 

It was the voice of John calling from within 
the house. That stiffish cavalier had determined 
to plunge, instead of delaying, to know his fate. 
He had the tiny white object and the bouquet, 
and with the former he was comparing a torn 
bit of newspaper ‘‘ad’’ which read: 


THIS RING ONLY $2.00 A WERK. 


John compared lovingly the tiny stone in 
the casket with the description and cut of it 
in the paper. 

‘‘Mary, I’m crazy about you!’’ Dan had been 
saying. ‘‘Only I haven’t got the nerve to tell 
you what I’ve been thinking !”’ 

She wanted to hear more, for every fiber 
of her being responded to his magnetic touch 
and his acted but unphrased love; but she could 
not, for John was calling. She slipped away 
to the half-door, where John with his tokens 


MARY FINDS A HOME 13] 


was standing on the other side of it. Rather 
awkwardly, he presented her with the bouquet. 

“Why, Johnny,’’ exclaimed Mary softly, 
‘‘these are orange blossoms—and orange blos- 
soms mean a wedding!’’ 

John bridled and glowed. Yes, his sign lan- 
guage was being understood. ‘‘They’re from 
a man who’s crazy about you,’”’ he went on fer- 
vently, ‘‘but hasn’t got the nerve to speak!’’ 

(But why was Mary glancing back to Danny 
now and again?) 

‘‘He loves you, Mary,’’ continued John, ‘‘and 
wants you to marry him—but he doesn’t know 
if you care.’’ T'was just as near a direct pro- 
posal as John felt he could manage. Unable 
to say more, he seized Mary’s hands. 

The girl, returning the handclasp, turned her 
head squarely and looked at Dan. Nerves, 
probably. Was embarrassed by another’s pres- 
ence. Again looking at John, she said: ‘‘I 
think he’s just wonderful!”’ 

John hurriedly withdrew a hand and fumbled 
for the ring, which he tried to place on Mary’s 
finger. A look of consternation dawned on her 
face. Holding back the proffer, ‘“Why didn’t 
Danny give it to me, himself?’’ she asked. 

At the fateful words, John saw it all. Not 


132 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


his to destroy Love’s idyl, though he had no 
share of it. So Mary loved Dan, and Dan 
loved Mary. 

He signaled the approaching Dan by finger 
on lip not to give him away. Then, as the 
sportier brother came and put his arm around 
the girl’s waist, John said, with oddly twitching 
voice, as he displayed the ring: 

“Danny, I told Mary that you didn’t have 
nerve enough to give it to her—but she 
wouldn’t take it from me!”’ 

The ring having been finally accepted, the 
couple were in each other’s arms now. They 
had almost forgotten John entirely—John, who 
was ruefully studying the clipping again and 
wondering about the payments, for it was he 
who was to ‘‘pay the freight’’ on his brother’s 
engagement ring! 

Theirs to renew the dance and look forward 
to a life of unalloyed happiness; his, to be the 
lonely bachelor, for John knew that Mary was 
the ‘‘only girl’’ and there never would be an- 
other/in his hifes/ii., 


Any of my readers that were raised in old- 
fashioned surroundings know the stress that 
was laid on Sabbath holiness. Not a worldly 


MARY FINDS A HOME 133 


work nor amusement was allowed to desecrate 
the day. Even walking in the fields was taboo; 
_ likewise, ‘‘idle reading,’’ ‘‘profane music,’’ fun 
of any kind, and noise. Lest the following in- 
cident should seem to be exaggerated, ’twere 
well to remember that a member of the Auld 
Kirk, coming to America from a primitive 
Highland community, perpetuated the strictest 
of these taboos. 

Imagine, then, the horror of Martha McTav- 
ish, returning from a religious meeting, to hear 
in her own home the blare of the ‘‘Missouri 
Sunday Blues’? sundering the cireumambient 
quiet and to see the hugging Dan and Mary 
trotting up and down the carpentry floor to its 
jazzy strains! 

Martha McTavish’s righteous anger was 
speechless. She sought the Holy Book, opened 
it to page and verse of the dread prohibitions: 


* * * unto the third and fourth generations of them 
that hate me. 

Ill. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD 
THY GOD in vain. 

IV. REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY TO KEEP 
IT HOLY. 





CHAPTER XVII 
MARTHA’S RAGE AND DAN’S COUP 


... Marrua McTavisu took the open Book 
to the revelers, and with accusing finger 
pointed to the Commandments. Both shame- 
facedly stopped, though Dan protested: ‘‘I say, 
Mom, it was only a little harmless dancing.’’ 

‘‘Dancing!’’ retorted Mother McTavish, 
finding speech. ‘‘How dare ye desecrate the 
Lord’s Day in my house? 

‘“‘Dan, you’ve broken five of the ten di- 
vine Commandments already—dishonored your 
Mother, violated the Sabbath, flouted the name 
of your Creator, bowed down to a Graven 
Image, and set up Mammon above your Maker! 
God will punish this house if you stay here— 
you’ve been a wicked son and most ungrateful. 

“It is best, I’m thinking, that you make 
your departure now—TO-DAY—and not come 
back!’’ 

‘‘Oh, don’t say that,’’? begged Mary, inter- 


vening impulsively. ‘‘Please, don’t blame him, 
135 


136 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Mrs. McTavish—it was my fault. I asked him 
to put on the dance records!”’ 

For the first time Mother MeTavish gazed at 
the offending stencil. With disgust she read 
the caption: 

“VVE GOT THOSE SUNDAY BLUES” 


(The Missourians) 
C.B. 486 


then, picking the record off the Victrola, dashed 
it in pieces against the work bench. 

John, entering, saw the act as he had heard 
the last words of her denunciation. He laid his 
hand gently on his mother’s arm and said in a 
quiet voice: 

‘*Mother, there’s nothing anywhere in that 
Good Book against having a little wholesome 
fun on Sunday!’’ 

Martha McTavish stiffened. Somehow she 
felt beaten, with the three young people, includ- 
ing even her goody boy, opposing her. The sit- 
uation drew a tear from her unrelenting old 
eyes. 

‘‘Tf my own sons,’’ she said with a breaking 
voice, ‘‘prefer to violate the Sabbath with an 
unbeliever—rather than to keep it with me— 
it’s time for me to go!’? Mother McTavish 


MARTHA’S RAGE 137 


turned to her hat and coat on the rack and 
started to put them on. But Mary again inter- 
vened. 

‘‘Mrs. Mc'l'avish,’’ said the girl earnestly, 
‘this is your home, and I’ve no right to make 
you unhappy. If any one goes it will be me!’’ 
Mary started upstairs to her room, but Dan on 
the stairs intercepted her; after they had ex- 
changed a few words Mary went for her things. 

Now Mother McTavish again was remov- 
ing her street wear while John tried—very 
gentiy—to explain his point of view. Dan 
meantime was in a furious bustle about the 
house. "T'was evident he was under strong 
excitement and up to something. Soon Mary 
came down, bonneted and coated for the street, 
carrying her little belongings in a satchel. 
Then John spoke, gravely and strongly: 

‘*Mother, do you think you’re giving God a 
square deal—when you turn this kid out m Hrs 
name?’’ "Twas a question that should have ar- 
rested the veriest bigot, of whatever creed. 

But its effect was lost as Dan, triumphant in 
defeat, leaped into the room and, taking Mary’s 
hand protectingly, said: 

‘I’m not going to let you go alone, Kid! 
We’re going out right now and get married— 


1388 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


and we'll have our own home, play our own 
Victrola—and dance every Sunday until h— 
freezes and then, we’ll dance on the ice!’’ 

The Auld Kirk mother was too astonished 
for words, while John’s face showed that he— 
much as he loved his mother—admired their 
colossal grit. 

‘Yes, Mary and I are going to be married 
right now,’’ Dan reiterated, ‘‘and we’re going 
to live our own life, in our own heathenish 
way !’’ 

‘‘You’ve been wonderful, Johnny,’’ said the 
girl to the stay-at-home brother. ‘‘And when 
you fall in love some day, promise that you 
won’t forget me!’’ 

John promised—with a deeper meaning she 
was to understand in that unknown and mys- 
terious Future to which the Eternal Law was 
leading these four individual human wills. 

The old woman and the girl parted in kind- 
ness. Hven Dan and his mother softened at the 
last, friendly in disunion. But as Dan seized 
his hat and coat and drew Mary to the door, 
he launched back a Parthian shaft in which 
there vibrated a triumphant note: 

‘* Johnny, we’re going to LIVE; we’ll break 
all ten of your old commandments, and we’ll 


MARTHA’S RAGE 139 


finish rich and powerful, with the world at 
our feet— 

‘While you, Johnny, will keep your Ten 
Commandments, and you’ll finish just where 
you are now—a poor carpenter !’’ 

They were gone. John looked after them, 
wistful. Dan had the girl, and he would have 
the riches and power so he said. "T'was a habit 
of Dan to get almost anything that he wanted. 

‘‘T guess being a carpenter is just about all 
I’m good for!’’ said John bitterly. 

Mother McTavish, who had been strangely 
silent during the last part of the domestic 
storm, raised an enfolding arm to her sturdy 
son’s shoulder: ‘‘ John, dear, some mighty fine 
men have been carpenters!’’ she said, her eyes 
seeking the portrait of the Nazarene.... 





CHAPTER XVIII 
INTERLUDE: EAST OF SUEZ 


Wuitst Dan and Mary are embarking on 
their great life adventure sans the religion (or 
rebinding) that would tie them down amid the 
inhibitions of the Ancient Law, it behooves 
us—tfor the purpose of understanding the later 
complexes of our story—to consider just one 
reincarnation of the frank and _ sensuous, 
pleasure-loving Miriam in the Far Wast.... 


... Where the Hooghly and the Ganges de- 
bouch their many mouths to the Bay of Bengal, 
the slime of vast hinterlands is interpenetrated 
with these majestic and slow-moving rivers. 
Winged creatures of color as well as dun birds 
of prey hover over the waters. Tropic marshes 
luxuriate. On the banks life brilliant and often 
fetid holds sway. 

Equally so the wharves of Calcutta are 
crowded with the slime of mixed races, the 
garish brilliancy of the o’erdecorative Oriental; 


the blue-black hair, bold almond eyes, rounded 
141 


142 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


contours and full red lips of Asian strains 
whose direct sensuousness seems an unmask- 
ing—almost an unclothing to nakedness—of the 
primitive human animal. 

The Beast God and the Beast God’s votaries 
have not died. They are very real east of Suez. 
In Afghanistan the hawk-nosed, ferocious 
mountaineers have been thought the descend- 
ants of Israel’s wayward tribes. The famous 
Lost Ten have been placed in Central Asia, in 
China and in India; the Mongol is held by some 
to be of kinship to Moses, and the ‘‘heathen 
Chinee’’ is even to-day the worshiper of the 
Golden Calf. 

Outside the white man’s compounds, the mis- 
sions and the communities of the whites, 
Parsees and Jews, there ‘‘ain’t no Ten Com- 
mandments’’ as Kipling justly observed. 
’Mongst the mixed breeds one truly can dis- 
cover no difference ’twixt ‘‘the best’’? and ‘‘the 
worst.’’ Moses wields no awe, Jesus inspires 
no profound love. Yet one sempiternal type 
persists, even from the foot of Sinai. 

Miriam! 

Miriam, the pleasure-lover, the scatterer of 
Disease and Death. She whose feet are not in 
the Narrow Way, nor is her path guided by 


INTERLUDE: EAST OF SUEZ 143 


understanding. Miriam, priestess of the Bull 
Beast, vampire of all the ages, Cybele supreme, 
drawing her people to obscene orgies and kill- 
ing them by their sin. 

The beauty of her, the taint of her, is undy- 
BTA i sing 


A Chinese resort-keeper had brought to a 
house facing the Calcutta wharves a pretty 
little thing from Pondicherry. 

‘‘Her belong bimeby many lacs rupees,’’ he 
said in his queer English-Chink-Bengali. 
‘White sahib, him take, make rich!’’ 

The Chinaman sent her to a good Eurasian 
school, had her taught the languages and ac- 
complishments; after graduation had her in- 
ducted into the even more important arts of 
the toilette and of pleasing men. | 

‘¢Sally, her prettier than a Ranee,’’ the Chi- 
nese, rubbing his fat hands, would say. ‘‘Velly 
soon now, she meet gran’ English sahib!’’ The 
Celestial patted Sally Lung, his seventeen-year- 
old prize, with a dealer’s affection. 

She was a flower from Pondicherry’s muck. 
A gay French officer had begotten her and 
passed on. The mother was straight Chinese. 
Her daughter had the sinuous Gallic grace, the 


144 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


artful coquetry and the quickness of thought 
from the French side, conjoined to the frank 
animalism of the Oriental. Withal, the racial 
mixture had redoubled shrewdness. 

‘‘Shut up in an Englishman’s zenana!’’ 
pouted Sally to an Eurasian confidante. 

‘“‘Tres mauvais! I guess not. Sally ees tres 
jolais, she fool zat hollid Sing Lee wiz hees 
‘white slav’ sale.’’ 

‘‘But where would you go?’’ asked the friend. 

‘¢America,’’? said the Flower of Joy, whom 
the fame of our achievements, even to the re- 
stocking India with silver rupees, had reached. 

‘“‘Zose Americans are ri-ich an’ big and 
strong. Sally like big, strong men, she please 
—never fear! Oui, c’est ne pas? Sally fool 
Sing, she go make her fortune in America. You 
see!’’ 

The other Eurasian, a helpless pawn, sighed 
and smiled at this inkling of Sally’s incredible 
ambition. 


CHAPTER XIX 
THE SLICK CONTRACTOR 


THREE years passed.... 

By that time Dan McTavish had attained the 
first rungs of the ladder of his ambition. 
Which is not to be so greatly wondered at in 
a city ike San Francisco, with the rich oppor- 
tunities of its reconstruction boom. For Dan 
was hand in glove with the Municipal Center 
gentry, and permitted few chances to escape 
him. Starting in on small contracting jobs for 
the city, he worked into the building business. 
Hidden influence, smart bidding tricks, and an 
exceedingly crafty organization enabled him to 
defeat more conservative competitors, and he 
was now regarded as the most successful young 
contractor in the State. 

Dan and Mary lived on the high flanks of 
Nob Hill. He dressed his wife lavishly, a high- 
powered motor car chauffeured by a Jap took 
them about, and they moved on the social scale 
of folks with an income of $30,000 to $40,000 a 


year. 
145 


1446 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


John and the Mother, on the contrary, still 
occupied the little frame shop-and-home in the 
poorer quarter. John was ‘‘only a carpenter.’’ 
He supported himself and Martha McTavish, 
who declined to take the money of her rich son. 

Just to fearn how Dan juggled wealth as 
compared with John’s thin dimes, let us have a 
peep into the former’s fine apartment where 
a plump butler did the honors in the hall and 
brought in the visitors to the handsome dress- 
coated young Master. The visitor on this occa- 
sion was a wide-lipped individual with rather 
heavy features, bull neck, bold eyes, and a 
cranium whereof the bump of acquisitiveness 
was decidedly prominent. He was in his ‘‘soup 
and fish’’ too. 

‘‘Ah, Inspector Redding—glad to see you, 
old pal!’’ said the young host. 

The visitor directed his gaze to the model 
of a beautiful buttressed and pinnacled church 
edifice that stocd on the Master’s table. 

Dan’s eyes sought the same object, they ex- 
changed glances, and then Dan spoke. It was 
about the job he had just entered into for the 
building of the church. 

‘This time,’’? remarked the young contractor 
coolly, ‘‘we are going to take a chance on a 


THE SLICK CONTRACTOR 147 


leaner ‘mix.’ One part of cement to twelve of 
sand and rock—with a broad-minded Building 
Inspector like yourself on the job, it’s a cinch!’’ 

Redding, who had been bending over, study- 
ing the model quizzically, straightened with a 
jerk. The brown furze on the flannel lip bris- 
tled, and the features expressed something very 
like consternation. Redding, really alarmed, 
waved away the idea. 

His host immediately referred to a large vol- 
ume marked BUILDING CODE. ... 

Twas a funny kind of volume at that, for 
it opened in the center with hinge and clasp. 
Dan, unclasping the phony book, revealed 
within a fine array of cigars. Around the fifth 
from the end something yellow was wrapped. 
Dan selected this particular tribute to Lady 
Nicotine, and, winking, handed it over, saying: 

‘Have a cigar?’’ 

Redding unfolded from the cigar a thousand- 
dollar bill. He grinned and slowly closed one 
eye, in vast understanding. But his mind re- 
verted to Dan’s scheme. No longer the dic- 
tator but the suppliant friend, he said ear- 
nestly: 

‘<Tisten, boy. 

‘¢ ‘Hivery day in every way’ we’re getting 


148 THK TEN COMMANDMENTS 


slicker an’ slicker. But we’re building this 
church on filled ground, and I tell you tt isn’t 
safel’’ 

Dan reassured him. ‘‘Oh, I’ll make it safe, 
never fear!’’ They plunged into details. Slick 
Dan saw out in the hallway a new arrival, John, 
who had entered with a large package under his 
arm and was just meeting Mary. 

A. brilliant inspiration seized the builder. 
‘‘Come,’’ he said to Redding, ‘‘we’ll make my 
brother boss-carpenter of this new church build- 
ing. Like Cesar’s wife, he’s above reproach!’’ 

The Inspector, whose qualms had _ been 
quieted, caught the idea at once. 

Honest John’s official connection with the 
enterprise would lull suspicion, and they could 
go ahead with their get-rich-quick conspiracy 
of cement cheating without getting caught. 

John McTavish didn’t often darken his lux- 
ury-loving relatives’ door, but on this occasion 
he had a special errand. Mary now the social 
queen and lovely in evening dress, who had 
always kept a warm place in her heart for 
John, gave him a particularly cordial welcome. 
Clasping both his hands, she drew him into the 
conservatory. Picking a white flower and plac- 


THE SLICK CONTRACTOR 149 


ing it in the button-hole of his coat, ‘‘ Johnny 
dear,’’ said the little hostess, ‘‘I’m sorry that 
after three years I still have to decorate you 
with a ‘bachelor’s button’!’’ 

John could but smile in reply. His endur- 
ing unavowed love for her was his most treas- 
ured possession, but she was another’s, the 
wife of his brother! Yes, it hurt, her gentle 
reference to the bachelorhood—how his heart 
ached. ... Safest to change the subject and 
come to his errand. 

John unwrapped the large parcel and showed 
Mary what he had brought. Somehow, it looked 
oddly out of place in the lavish home. 

It was a picture enlargement, and the severe 
lineaments of Martha McTavish (as John held 
it up) seemed to look down in cold disapproval 
of all the apparatus of luxury. 

Mary beamed at the gift, however, and soon 
she and John interrupted Dan and Redding’s 
chat while the carpenter brother displayed it 
with simple pride. 

‘*Look, Danny,’’ said the wife. ‘‘Mother sent 
you her picture for your new apartment!’’ 

The contractor and his pet Inspector had 
hard work to control their features. Even 


150 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Mary was in on the unexpressed jibe at the 
queer old-fashioned thing, a relic of ‘‘Family 
Portrait’’ days. 

‘¢Well—where are you going to hang it?”’ 
simple John asked. 

‘“‘Let Mary decide,’’ replied Dan, the quick 
thinker, passing the picture to his spouse. 
“It’s very good of Mother, really. And now, 
John, if you have a few moments, I’d like to 
talk with you—’’ 

The two brothers were left alone. Redding 
took himself off. Mary went out with the pic- 
ture and busied herself in the house. 

‘“‘It was great news to Mother,’ said John, 
‘‘that you’d landed the contract for the church 
—she almost feels you’re one of her Bible sort 
once more. I’m thinking ’twill add ten years 
to her life, she is so delighted and happy!’’ 

‘*Good!’’ replied the contractor, who was in 
an ingratiating mood. He smiled persuasively 
and patted his mechanic brother. 

‘*‘ Johnny,’’ he said, ‘‘I’m going to make you 
boss-carpenter on this new job.’’ 

John frowned and looked serious. He hesi- 
tated to speak, then finally said: 

‘‘{—don’t—know—’’ Starting again with 
an effort, ‘‘I’ve heard some nasty rumors, Dan 


THE SLICK CONTRACTOR 151 


—about your smuggling in the jute for your 
plaster!’’ He fingered nervously the steel ring 
to which were attached samples of the various 
kinds of Hast India jute. 

With a laugh Dan took the ring from his 
hand and placed it back of John’s head and 
slightly above, in the position of a halo. 

‘‘Look at yourself in the mirror,’’ grinned 
Dan. ‘‘What’s the use of being such a saint?”’ 

For answer John recovered the steel ring 
and with his powerful grip twisted it into the 
shape of a figure 8. He held it out before him, 
then inserted a hand of his brother’s in each 
of the apertures. ‘‘There are two ways of wear- 
ing it, Danny,’’ said John meaninely. 

The slick brother disengaged himself of the 
improvised handcuffs. ‘‘No danger of that! 
I’m too careful—’’ He dropped the joking and 
said earnestly: 

‘‘T want you to take this job, John, because 
T’ll pay you enough money to buy Mother some 
of the things that she refuses to accept from 
me.’’ The tone of sincerity was in his voice, 
the church construction so dear to his mother’s 
heart appealed tremendously to John. 

Dan’s disclaimer of villainy, the prospect of 
giving the little Mother ease, carried the day. 


152 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


John agreed to boss the woodwork of the 
church. The two brothers shook hands. 

Yet there was a flare-up betwixt them as 
John’s bachelor button dropped to the table 
and Dan quickly picked it up, forestalling the 
other. He (Dan) had seen Mary’s little act 
of auld lang syne affection in presenting the 
flower, and some jealous demon impelled him 
to twit John. 

‘‘While you’re so earnest about your Ten 
Commandments,’’ he said, mockingly, ‘‘isn’t 
there one which says something about ‘covet- 
ing your brother’s wife’?’’ 

‘‘You’re right, Dan, I do love Mary!’’ was 
John’s straight-from-the-shoulder answer. 

Both men were worked up, confronting each 
other. Neither had noticed the slight figure 
of Mary on the stair landing. She paused, 
rigid, as she overheard John’s declaration. 

‘*T won’t forget that she 7s your wife,’’ con- 
tinued John. ‘‘I hope YOU won’t forget it 
either !’’ 

(The figure on the stair raised sorry and 
empty hands....Seemed it possible that 
‘‘smashing the Ten Commandments’”’ had not 
brought mutual happiness to husband and wife? 
. . - Had Dan’s devious ways sickened her, and 


THE SLICK CONTRACTOR 153 


did she more truly admire the honest man whom 
she had rejected? The girl thrilled strangely, 
and with a sort of convulsive movement turned 
away.) 

John’s breasting of Dan made the latter mad 
clean through. For the moment he felt the 
Cain to the other’s Abel. Pshaw! The situa- 
tion was his, why fight? Yes, he had Mary, 
and John—the simpleton !—would serve him as 
camouflage and cat’s-paw. 

The contractor decided to take his brother’s 
words in good part. He smilingly acknowledged 
their good intent, and the men parted without 
a rupture. 

Despising John at heart as he did, Dan him- 
self failed to realize that with every building 
he put up he, the successful brother, was tear- 
ing down part of his own soul! ‘‘THOU 
SHALT NOT STEAL!’’ meant nothing to him. 





CHAPTER XX 
END OF SALLY’S QUEST 


Miss Satty Lune, the eternal magdalene of 
our Far Hast scene—the slant-browed, almond- 
eyed, scarlet flower out of the muck of Pondi- 
cherry—escaped from the wharves of Calcutta 
about twenty months before the date of these 
occurrences. 

Having won the fancy of a viking South Sea 
captain, she was boldly rified from the jealous 
care of Sing Lee, the Calcutta resort keeper 
who had meant to sell her to an English tea 
planter as his mistress. The beautiful Eura- 
sian took the grand tour of the copra islands 
instead, In company with her fierce Northman 
of whose primitive single-mindedness she came 
to tire. She escaped from him in an open boat, 
and by the mischances of the sea landed at Mo- 
lokai! 

There she would have remained forever an 
outcast but for the kenning of the wiles of the 
‘‘heathen Chinee.’’ A smuggler’s cargo of jute 


from Calcutta had been wrecked and partially 
155 


156 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


beached on a lonely stretch of coast. The inde- 
fatigable comprador made a getaway, and re- 
turned with another vessel to salvage the dry 
bales. Sally, who had ‘‘much cash,’’? made a 
bargain with him. He was to take her aboard 
and smuggle her inte Frisco as jute. 

The plan was carried out with the slickness 
of two clever Chinese who understood every- 
thing except morals. Just before they came in 
sight of western America, the jute of one large 
bale was partly pulled out and Sally Lung found 
a nest within. She was supplied with food, 
water, air-vent anda knife. That night the jute 
bales were landed at an obscure wharf where 
Dan MeTavish’s runners befooled the United 
States Custom officers. 

‘‘Number Seven bale—him velly good!’’ the 
comprador told Contractor McTavish gleefully. 
‘*You want—make own use—you pay tlee-fou’ 
—five hundled dollah, maybe.’’ The Chinaman 
was almost playful. He whispered in Dan’s 
ear. 

As the keen Dan was hurrying to the wharf, 
a weird little scene was being enacted there 
while the watchman with his stick and lantern 
was loafing at the far end.... 

Through ‘‘No. Seven bale’’ a knife protruded. 


END OF SALLY’S QUEST 157 


It slashed the burlap again and again till a 
four-foot cut was made. 

Then came out wriggling, snaky-like fingers, 
velvety white hands and finally a closely 
shrouded feminine figure with the face also 
closely veiled. 

Miss Sally Lung looked about. So this was 
America, her Land of Promise! But where 
was her American, the man-God who should 
minister her pleasures? Better avoid the lum- 
bering watchman now, find her Desired later! 

Miss Sally Lung, cat-like, crept around the 
corner. 

As she neared the end of the wharf she threw 
off concealment. Minus her veil and the en- 
shrouding coat, Sally was distractingly pretty 
in her bold half-French, half-Chinese way. Dan 
almost plumped into her. From the wisps of 
jute sticking to her cloak, he made no doubt 
whatever she was ‘‘No. Seven bale.’’ 

Sally looked at the handsome, well-set-up 
young fellow. Again her prescience had served 
her. Before she had set foot on Frisco soil, 
here was the ‘‘strong, ri-ich American’’ she 
craved. 

‘*Plees’, will you be so good—show me ze 
way to China Town?’’ 


158 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


‘‘You are the young—er—lady who came in 
the jute, I think,’’ replied Dan, who had a way 
with the sex. ‘‘Do you know you belong to me? 
I own all this cargo!’’ with a wave of the hand. 

‘‘Psst! do not tell ze officiers—or they will 
send Sally back! Quick, ze watchman he comes! 
Plees’, I can run a leetle if ze gran’ Sahib wi-ill 
take my hand!’’ 


It was the beginning of an infatuation 
wherein Dan, who had broken most of the di- 
vine commands, played tennis with the Seventh. 
The opprobrium of the scarlet sin meant noth- 
ing to him—or to her. But she was wise with 
the calculating wisdom of the eternal Cybele, 
fended him off until she had got what she 
wanted. ... 


Contractor McTavish’s enterprises contin- 
ued to flourish. Eight months later his beauti- 
ful, nearly completed church stood—with its 
walls of rotten concrete—a monument to his 
defiance of God’s law. 

Through the scaffolding which nearly hid the 
front, a work elevator now and again shot diz- 
zily to the skies. High up on the narrow roof, 
200 feet above the street, Boss Carpenter John 


END OF SALLY’S QUEST 159 


McTavish found much to do before the final 
topping of the structure with a Gothic foresta- 
tion of spire, turret and pinnacle. 

On the ground level the scalawag McQuire, 
a creature of Dan’s, had sole charge of the 
cement mix, whilst a watchman doorkeeper saw 
to it that no prying eyes were about. Limiting 
John’s sphere entirely to the carpentry, the 
head conspirators felt secure. 

On the morning of which we tell, Dan keened 
the reward of his cleverness. Not only was a 
large part payment on the work in immediate 
prospect, but the elusive Sally Lung—the infi- 
nitely sinuous and beautiful Kurasian—was to 
be the reward of his endeavors. ‘‘Mon beau 
Americain,’’ she had said, ‘‘he geef me lovenest, 
an’ ze pretty jewels, make Sally happy—zen 
Sally love—Oh, so much!’’ The fatuous Dan, 
without haggling, had surrendered to the 
terms... 

In the little contracting office, beneath the 
towering church walls, a man from the local 
Tiffany’s had left a precious box and departed. 
The white satin casket held an exquisite rope 
of pearls. Dan was sparkling with pride and 
Redding, his pal, was admiring and jestful. 

‘‘Wouldn’t they look great on your wife?’’ 


160 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


said the inspector, stringing the pearls around 
a framed photo of Mary’s and holding it up 
to view. 

‘‘Yes, would they?’’ said Dan, with averted 
face. He had no mind to be thinking of Mary. 

‘‘Miss Sally Lung is here, sir.’’ 

The individual who entered with this an- 
nouncement was none other than Steve Bohan- 
non, the boon friend of Dan’s poor days and 
now his clerk. Steve winked and grinned, with 
the familiarity of old acquaintance. His eyes 
rolled eloquently—Stevie was ‘‘on.’’ 

‘‘Yes, in just a moment!”’ 

Steve discreetly retired. 

Redding laid a hand on the contractor’s 
shoulder. ‘‘Go easy, son! This Sally Lung 
is half French and half Chinese.’’ He paused 
and continued: ‘‘The combination of French 
perfume and Chinese incense is more danger- 
ous than nitro-glycerine!’’ In that vivid way 
of his, he pantomimed a sudden puff—and an 
explosion. 

Dan laughed, made ready to receive the vis- 
itor. The door opened noiselessly on the crack. 
The slant-browed beauty—her almond eyes and 
piquant features set off by a ravishing little 
toque—peered around the corner. 


END OF SALLY’S QUEST 161 


‘‘Did my lord send for me?’’ purred Sally. 
She was catlike in her approach, sleek and en- 
chanting. She wore a wonderful white cloak, 
soft and rich as a Persian feline’s fur. One 
hand and arm was bare, she was removing a 
long, embroidered glove from the other. The 
truly magnificent Sally stood at the desk, look- 
ing down on the heir of the House of McTav- 
ish. 

Dan, returning her gaze, waggled a com- 
manding finger at Redding, who somewhat mo- 
rosely departed. The infatuated contractor 
steadied himself by lighting a cigarette. 

Sally took it from his lips, puffed it, and re- 
turned it with a caressing arm around his shoul- 
der, putting it in his mouth again. Then she 
moved to the satiny casket on the table and 
started to pick it up. But Dan wasn’t minded 
to pay in advance! Regaining the precious ob- 
ject, he opened the jewel case and let her 
glimpse the wonderful sixty-inch necklace; then 
he put it away. 

Sally opened a new attack. 

‘‘Hor luncheon to-day, in the new apartment 
of Sally Lung—is prepared the Chinese love- 
drink ‘Ny-gar-pay’—distilled from a thousand 
lotus flowers.’’ 


162 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


She was now the soft, surrendering magda- 
lene! 

‘‘Yes, I think I can make it—and I’ll bring 
the rope of pearls.’’ Sally’s eyes gleamed. 
Dan sought the preliminary tribute of a kiss. 
Cunning as he, she fended him off—ever so 
slightly. 

A bargain was a bargain. She awaited its 
fulfillment. 


While this scene was taking place Mary 
McTavish was on her way to the office with her 
husband’s lunch. Since their poorer days she 
had made a habit of thus saving him minutes, 
but the workman’s pail was now replaced by 
elegant basketry and within were thermos bot- 
tles and the choicest fare. It was a kind of 
rite of Mary’s, who to-day looked stunning in 
her modish cream suit relieved by black fur 
edgings, neck and wristlets. The Jap chauf- 
feur bowed her out of the handsome motor and 
handed her the basket. 

“Will you please tell my husband,’’ she asked 
Steve, ‘‘that I have brought his luncheon?’’ 

Steve, looking oddly embarrassed, faced her 
in front of the office door. 

‘‘T’m very sorry, but Mr. McTavish left here 


END OF SALLY’S QUEST 163 


a few minutes ago’’—Steve gulped as if swal- 
lowing his words—‘‘to take luncheon with some 
bankers !’’ 

Mary’s roving eyes sought the floor. Some- 
thing or other lay at her feet. Yes! It was 
a woman’s glove. She bade the clerk pick it 
up. A tell-tale glove, arm-long, exquisitely 
embroidered in an exotic pattern. Mary, in a 
flash, sensed what it—and the shut door— 
meant! The distracted clerk, wiping off the 
beads of perspiration that stood on his face, 
was perforce obliged to let her keep the gaunt- 
let as departing she gave him a cool ‘‘Good 
morning !’’ 

Steve moved to acquaint his master, then 
jumped at the sound of footsteps. No, it wasn’t 
Mrs. McTavish relurning; just the Japanese 
chauffeur who in passing grinned widely as if 
to say, ‘I’m on!’’ 


John, from the top of the church, saw Mary 
at the motor. Pleased as Punch, he waved his 
arms and shouted a greeting from his lofty 
perch. 

Mary called and waved back, decided the 
lunch would serve John if not Dan, and started 
running across the street, basket under arm, 


164 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


toward the construction work. Too late John 
realized what his friendly hail had let her in 
for. 

“‘Don’t come up,’’ he shouted down, trying 
to make himself heard. ‘‘it’s nineteen dizzy 
flights—blowing great guns.’’ 

If she heard the faraway voice, she was too 
excited and eager to heed it. ‘‘I’ll take the 
Air Line Short Cut!’’ she shouted back, 
a-quiver with the joy of the adventure. A 
plasterer and his barrow made way for her, 
and she hopped into the work-elevator. 

She silenced the protests of the lift engineer 
who operated the contraption by ground floor 
levers. ‘‘Send it up!’’ she commanded imperi- 
ously. Hesitating, he obeyed her. 

Up—up—up toward the skies shot the lift, 
with its eager, thrilled passenger. 

Overhead, naught but the cerulean blue; 
around, the open timbering of the church-high 
scaffold—at her journey’s end, John! Up 
there, the ordinarily cool Boss Carpenter acted 
very much the maniac! 

Wildly gesturing, he ran to the shaft head, 
peered over, lifted the gate bar, and prepared 
to grab, even before the lift bumped the top 
timber. But to his intense relief Mary was all 


END OF SALLY’S QUEST 165 


right. She lightly gave him her hand, and 
stepped out from the opened gate onto the con- 
crete. 

‘*You little devil, are you trying to give me 
heart failure?’’ He was reacting from the 
strong excitement. ‘‘You had better go down 
as fast as you came up, I think,’’ he said 
gravely. ‘‘This sky eyrie is no place for a 
woman !”’ 





CHAPTER XXI 
DISCOVERY ! 


Mary smiled and displayed her basket. 
‘“You can’t send me down,’’ she eried, ‘‘when 
I’ve brought you such a wonderful lunch! Be- 
sides,’’ her gaze now circled the grand pano- 
rama of sky and peaks, ‘‘besides, this is prob- 
ably the nearest to Heaven I’ll ever get!’’ 

From the scenes above, Mary looked down 
toward the pavement. The sight did not dizzy 
her, but after a moment she plucked John’s 
sleeve. 

‘‘Look, what do you see down there?’’ She 
pointed to the curb in front of Dan’s office. 

The contractor and a modishly dressed 
beauty (pigmy in perspective, but clearly dis- 
tinguishable) were stepping from the sidewalk 
into a fine sedan. There was a fleeting glimpse 
of some endearment (Mary wondered if Dan 
had really dared kiss the hussy in public!). 
He looked quickly up and down the street to 


see if he had been spied on, then the glass 
167 


168 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


door closed, and the sedan, guided by its femi- 
nine driver, was whisked away! 

The two on the tower looked at one another 
silently. The same thought was in the mind 
of each—Dan’s declaration after he had won 
Mary from his brother and was leaving home: 
“T’m going to smash ALL your old Ten Com- 
mandments !’’ 

Mary at last broke the silence, smiling rue- 
fully. 

‘‘Well, he has one Commandment left,’’ she 
said. ‘‘I don’t think he has killed anybody 
yet!’’ 


Mary emptied her luncheon basket and pre- 
pared to take her departure. 

She stepped around John, and with one foot 
on the edge of the coping, sought the elevator 
landing. 

Beneath the French heel, the edge of the con- 
crete crumbled like sawdust. Losing her foot- 
ing, she raised wild arms, trying to catch hold 
of anything that offered. Mary was falling— 
falling through the open shaft to the death 
that would jump at her from below! 

With a superhuman effort she managed to 
seize a cross timber and hung there! 


DISCOVERY! 169 


Now John was down among the timbers, 
holding on with one hand, while he got the 
other around the pendent girl’s waist. With 
herculean strength he encircled and upraised 
her until her whole weight shifted to his arm, 
then brought her panting to safety on the plat- 
form above. 

For a moment or two they stood huddled 
there, his arm not yet withdrawn, her head 
pressed against the crook of his shoulder. 
Half consciously, the saved girl was gently 
stroking his breast. 

Recovering herself, she looked up at him with 
a new lovelight in her eyes, and an inscrutable 
smile in which spoke the eternal wisdom of 
Eve. 

‘‘T think it would have been less dangerous, 
John,’’ she said, ‘‘if you had let me fall.’’ But 
John was already at the job of tapping the 
flawed coping with a small hammer. 

There had been one spectator of their un- 
wonted embrace, and he, after the manner of 
his kind, inferred the worst. 

As Redding—on one of his fake inspections 
—started up the last stairway, he just caught 
sight of them. ‘‘O-ho!’’ The ‘‘Inspector”’ 
closed one eye completely. The smirk of his 


170 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


moon-like face said plainly: ‘‘So that’s the way 
the land lays!’’ Redding mounted the stairs. 

‘‘Mary, I want you fo get off here, quick!’’ 
was the stern word from John. He was show- 
ing her a large chunk of the concrete which 
his light taphammer had chipped off. ‘‘Crim- 
inal!’’ he said. ‘‘Look! It crumbles to pieces 
under the fingers.’’ A. moiety of it, under his 
clutch, broke to a white dust as Redding ap- 
proached them. 

John held out the find. 

‘‘Redding,’’ he said, earnestly, ‘‘:f all the 
rest of the concrete is as rotten as this section, 
work on this church is going to stop right now!’? 

The mild John was mad clean through. 

For the first time since he had protested to 
the contractor against the lean mixture, Red- 
ding was thoroughly alarmed. John would 
simply spill everything! Some quick work was 
needed. First, Mary must be appealed to. 

‘‘Mrs. McTavish,’? Redding, ignoring the 
other, addressed the contractor’s wife, ‘‘some- 
body’s been feeding our Angel-F'ace here red 
meat. 

‘‘Tf you know where Dan is, get him quick 
—hbefore his loving brother gets us all in the 
papers !’’ 


DISCOVERY! 171 


It was a frightened Redding that spoke, and 
for once his thought about Dan was on all fours 
with John’s. 

The girl fetched Sally’s glove out of her bag. 
The clew that would find him! Yes, in the arms 
of another woman. Mary hated her task. But 
she must get Steve’s aid and rout out Dan— 
there was no other way! John escorted her to 
the head of the stairway, taking care to keep 
her from the perilous coping. Then he faced 
around, confronting Redding. 

That functionary had been fumbling in his 
pockets and had brought out a handful of yel- 
lowbacks. Grasping John’s arm in his confi- 
dential pol. way, he began to talk rapidly, 
denying, extenuating, arguing that the flaw was 
probably the result of a solitary bad ‘‘mix.”’ 

Presently Redding came to the point, as he 
conceived it. Proffering the yellowbacks, 
‘Young man,’’ he said meanfully, ‘‘minding 
your business pays very big dividends!”’ 

Biff! 

John’s right fist shot out and landed on the 
inspector’s right maxillary. Without waiting 
to count the damage, he was on his way and 
disappearing down the stairs. 

The knocked down pol. ruefully nursed his 


172 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


swollen jaw in one hand while with the other 
he tried to replevin the flying ‘‘yellow boys.’’ 
Some went off in space, many of them floated 
down through the timbering. 

The shower of United States currency de- 
scended like manna on three workmen far be- 
low. ‘‘Sweet papa!’’ cried a mechanic, grab- 
bing off into space for a yellow $100 note. He 
caught it while hanging from a rafter, then 
chinned himself and rejoined the others who 
were reveling in their tens, twenties and fif- 
ties. 


CHAPTER XXII 
AT THE CHURCH, AND AFTER 


Tue thunder of God is not always in the sky. 

It may sometimes be heard in the rumble 
of heavy sand trucks over a cobbled street! 

So indeed John the honest brother heard it 
as he sought to disprove or confirm his fears 
of the building’s rottenness. On the way down 
he tested soft sections of the concrete with 
growing alarm. On reaching the street level 
he hastened around to the rear of the church, 
figuring that there Dan and Redding would 
have put the rottenest ‘‘mix.”’ 

Back of the apse was a poorly cobbled, very 
uneven street with many humps and depres- 
Sions, over which the passage of the five-ton 
trucks sounded like artillery. John could actu- 
ally feel the ground shake. He looked up. 
There was an irregular crack up and down the 
apse wall, a crack which was widening and 
lengthening with the successive vibrations! 
Chips of the concrete were falling. Quick! 


There was no time to lose. John raced around 
173 


174 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


to the front of the building, demanding of 
McQuire: 

‘‘T want the truth about this concrete—how 
much cement are you putting in the mix?”’ 

‘‘None of your d—d business! Ain’t you a 
carpenter?”’ 

John seized the rascal by the shirt collar, 
and shook him as a terrier would shake a rat. 
He started to pummel him, but Mae abjectly 
surrendered. 

‘‘ About one to twelve!’’ said the boss mixer. 
‘‘T was told to double up on the sand—and 
cut down on the cement.’’ 

Still holding on to McQuire, John hailed a 
passing employee. He spoke with determined 
authority. ‘‘Here, you— 

“Tell Kelly to call all the men off the scaf- 
folding, and to allow no one mside the buld- 
ang!?? 

The man fairly ran with the message. John 
still held to his prisoner, with whom he meant _ 
to confront Dan. He partly dragged, partly 
escorted him toward the office. 

The workers were now descending from the 
seaffolds, and the doorkeeper had his new or- 
ders. At least, there shouldn’t be loss of life. 
... No one particularly noticed a quaint little 


AT THE CHURCH, AND AFTER 175 


figure that approached the front of the edifice 
and looked pridefully up at the large sign on 
the face of it, reading: 


DANIEL McTAVISH 


CONTRACTOR 





The sightseer was Martha McTavish. Her 
old religious disputes with her son Dan now 
in the limbo of the buried past, she was im- 
mensely proud and happy that her son—The 
McTavish—had been chosen to erect the church. 
Somehow he seemed to her a changed person, 
meliorated and transfigured by the identity 
with God’s house of worship! She must see 
the wonders of the inside, really. 

‘‘Building’s closed!’’ announced the door- 
keeper, waving her back. ‘‘Strict orders no 
one must enter!’’ he added, less gruffly. 

‘‘T’m sure it’s all right for me to go in,”’ 
replied the little old lady, calmly. ‘‘I’m Mrs. 
McTavish, Dan’s mother!’’ She pointed affec- 
tionately ta the large sign. ‘I’m sure he won’t 
mind having his mother look around.’’ 

The doorkeeper, who didn’t know the reason 
for the building’s closing, let her pass. 


176 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Mother McTavish went through the nave and 
paused in front of the twin tablets in the apse, 
the edges of which she reverently touched with 
her fingers. 


THE TEN COMMANDMENTS! 


Sally got her rope of pearls. Dan drank the 
Ny-gar-pay, which turns men into satyrs. She 
knew no moral code. He knew all the Ten, 
professed to flout them. Under the influence 
of the delicious drink, Dan’s veins became fire. 
He clasped the willing, slant-eyed, voluptuous 
Magdalene in his arms, forgot whether any 
Commandments—Ten or other—existed! 

THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADUL- 
TERY! meant no more to him than the out-of- 
bounds rules of the United States Golf Asso- 
ciation. Dan thought it a fine thing that, while 
having a pleasing little wife in the purlieus of 
Nob Hill, he should cherish an adorable Eura- 
sian sweetheart in Grant Avenue. 


CHAPTER XXII 
WHEN THE APSE FELL— 


... STEVIE and Mary managed, between 
them, to rout Dan out of his Oriental elysium. 
"T'was an intensely distasteful—nay, disgust- 
ing—task to Mary. Steve effected the harder 
part of it—the pulling him away from Sally 
—by the outright statement that the church 
building was endangered. They got him into 
the family coupé, and the knowing Jap chauf- 
feur made double speed to Washington Square. 
Dan hardly spoke during the rapid journey. 

‘‘Thank God, you’ve come!’’ exclaimed Red- 
ding, welcoming him at the little office. He 
looked injured, and he was certainly nursing 
a badly swelled jaw. ‘‘That angel brother of 
yours,’’ complained the inspector, ‘‘is raising 
H—I1!?? 

The truth of Redding’s remark was borne out 
by the entry of John, still holding fast to 
McQuire with the one hand, and in the other 


hand bearing lumps of the building material. 
177 


178 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


He laid them out before his brother, and showed 
him how they crumbled. 

‘*You can’t get away with it, Dan!’’ shouted 
John. ‘‘You’re stealing thousands of dollars 
on your concrete—and something’s going to 
smash!’’ 

It was peculiar how Dan took the onslaught. 
Instead of replying to John, he was addressing 
his wife, who seemed to have confirmed John’s 
charge of cheating. 

‘‘Don’t be a fool, Mary!’’ said Dan sharply. 
“You ought to know I can’t make enough 
money to maintain us in this style, without cut- 
ting on some of the specifications. And Brother 
John here,’’ he sneered, ‘‘isn’t interested in 
concrete. He is trying to ruin me, in order 
to get you!’’ 

At the insult John raised his fists. Mary 
had all she could do to avert fighting by the 
maddened brothers. She intervened so she 
would necessarily be the target of their blows, 
and succeeded in separating them. 

Somehow she had the power of calming John 
particularly, whose next speech was in a vein 
of brotherly appeal. 

‘‘Danny,’’ he said earnestly, ‘‘you’ve got to 
make this concrete right! You can’t break 


WHEN THE APSE FELL— 179 


every law of God and man, and get away with 
Veh? 

Dan plainly was cornered, but he had his big 
argument in reserve. Defiantly, he faced John 
and Mary equally. 

‘‘T told you I’d break the Ten Command- 
ments,’’ he cried, ‘‘and look what I’ve got for 
it—SUCCESS! 

‘‘That’s all that counts! 

“‘I’m sorry if your God doesn’t like it— 
but thigem, Wye party, nots We 477 


As if to refute the words, a terrible crash 
from somewhere outside deafened their ears. 

The avalanche repeated itself on a somewhat 
lesser scale, then reduced to a series of minor 
erashes and rumbles. 

For a moment the trio stood horror-stricken. 
John was the first to recover, and dashed out 
of the office door. Dan still stood, as if frozen 
with horror. Mary was tearful yet wide-eyed. 
A mechanic’s maniacal face showed itself at the 
window. 

‘‘The south wall’s fallen,’’ he yelled. ‘‘They 
say an old woman was underneath!’’ The 
crazed worker vanished as he had come. 

The wife approached the Commandment- 


180 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


breaker as if, even yet, she might console him. 
Dan’s head was in his hands. He seemed to 
be sobbing. He waved back her overture. Re- 
alizing she could not help him, she too sought 
the catastrophe. At last the young master 
builder himself faced the end of his work. He 
stepped from the office into the church. 


The scene there presented was a terrible one. 
From the wreckage protruded great ghastly 
lengths of wire and lath, flapping above the 
dust storm. The whole rear wall of the apse 
was down, save only a small projection up- 
holding the twin tablets that stood awful, ma- 
jestical. The apse floor itself was a huge 
moraine of bowlders, buttresses, pillars and 
builder’s material, across which walking was 
almost impossible. 

‘‘Look!’’? cried a workman, ‘‘there’s some- 
body crushed under that there big stone!’’ 

John reached the spot first by his extraordi- 
nary physical agility, and soon he and the 
others removed the crushing weights. Hor- 
ror! The mangled figure revealed was that of 
the little mother. John lifted her tenderly, and 
carried her where the tortured body and poor 
limbs could be eased. Some of the crew had 


WHEN THE APSE FELL— 181 


rung for an ambulance, the surgeon of which 
now entered the wrecked church. 

He bent over the victim for a few moments, 
feeling her pulse and heart beats and examin- 
ing her hurts. 

‘‘There’s nothing any one can do,’’ said the 
city doctor gravely. ‘‘It’s only a matter of 
minutes!’ He left the sufferer at death’s dark 
door with the family, after waving back the 
bystanders. 

Mary was sobbing, John rigid with this in- 
credible sorrow, but Dan was leaning over 
the dying figure—imploring, passionately. 

‘¢ Johnny, dear,’’ said the feeble, choked voice 
of the mother, ‘‘I want to talk to Danny— 
alone.’’? Quickly he and Mary obeyed her last 
request. 

‘Oh, Mom, don’t die,’’ cried Dan, in broken 
accents, ‘‘or it’ll be me that killed you! I built 
these walls—and they’re made of rotten con- 
crete!’ 

The little mother asked him to release the 
brooch at her neck. He opened it for her, and 
she fondled two locks of hair within. 

‘‘Tt’s your hair, Danny, my own little boy— 
whatever you’ve done, it’s all my fault,’’ she 
smiled wanly, pitifully. ‘‘I taught you to fear 


182 THK TEN COMMANDMENTS 


God instead of to love Him—and love is all that 
counts!’’ She stopped, each word costing her 
a pang. Mary and John drew near, at a ges- 
ture from Dan. She saw them. ‘‘Dan’s— 
hair,’’ she ejaculated feebly. ‘‘ When—he—was 
a—baby!’’ She groaned, turned slightly, and 
fell into the eternal sleep. 

As they bent solemnly to look if she had 
passed away, Dan’s eyes somehow went from 
her dead form to the awful Tablets still un- 
breakable among the wreck that had killed her. 
Across their face formed the lettering— 


THOU SHALT NOT STEAL! 


—then dissolved again, and Dan for the first 
time saw himself as he was—A THIEF—in the 
sight of God and Man! 


CHAPTER XXIV 
STRAIT IS THE GATE, NARROW THE WAY 


Tree people and the Commandments! 

What has the august Book now to say to 
them? 

For truly—in the supreme crisis of lfe— 
the teachings that we have imbibed from in- 
fancy stand out, whether to scourge, to in- 
spire or to bless. 

We are driven back upon them, even as Dan, 
Mary and John were by the tragic death of the 
little ‘‘Bible Mother.’’ 

Yet, strangely enough, one finds in the Bible 
only what he or she puts into it. 

To the believer, faith; to the warm-hearted, 
divine love; to the stern, God’s judgment day; 
to the rationalist, inconsistencies and shortcom- 
ings; to the scoffer, drivel, and to the wicked, 
rules made to be broken! 

Dan knew that he had committed a crime, 
and suffered torments because of his mother’s 


death. During that brief and awful experi- 
183 


184 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


ence when ‘‘THOU SHALT NOT STHAL’’ 
was limned upon the Tablets, he knew himself 
a thief before God and Man. 

Not for long, however | 

His subliminal self interpreted the ‘‘crime’’ 
as being a failure to be ‘‘smart enough’’ to 
get away with it. 

If the unlucky cement mix had not proved 
too lean, if the Church had stood up and his 
parent been spared, Dan (so his second self 
told him) would have reaped the illegal gains 
without a qualm. 

Eiverybody—the contractor, the pol., the 
wage-grabbing mechanics, the church authori- 
ties demanding low bids, the money-lenders ex- 
torting higher interest, the building supply men 
jacking up prices—everybody was trying to get 
the best of it. They got as much—gave as little 
—as they could. That was business! His was 
business too. Only, he had gone too far. The 
Kighth Commandment was a rule made to be 
broken. 


“And Jehovah said unto Moses: Lo, I come wnto 
thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when 
I speak with thee, and may also believe thee forever. 
* * * And all the people perceived the thunderings 
and the lightnings and the voice of the trumpet, 


STRAIT IS THE GATE 185 


and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw 
it, they trembled, and stood far off. 

‘And Jehovah came down upon Mount Sinai, to the 
top of the mount; and Jehovah called Moses to the 
top mount; and Moses went up* * * And God 
spake all these words, saying: 

“T am Jehovah, thy God, who brought thee out of 
the land of bondage. * * * Thow shalt have no other 
gods before Me * * * Thow shalt not make unto thee 
any graven image * * * Thou shalt not take the 
name of the Lord thy God in vain * * * Remember 
the Sabbath Day * * * Honor thy father and thy 
mother * * * Thow shalt not kill * * * Thow shalt 
not commit adultery * * * Thou shalt not steal * * * 
Thou shalt not bear false witness * * * Thow shalt 
mot covet. * * * An altar of earth shalt thou make 
unto Me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offer- 
ings and thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thine 
oxen * * * And if thou wilt make me an altar of 
peace, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone; for 
af thow lift thy tool upon it thou hast polluted 


at * * * 99 


The eye of faith sees the grand commands 
belching forth in a storm-wracked heaven, 
whilst the ear is awed by the voice of the celes- 
tial trumpet. The eye of the modernist equally 
sees God gradually revealed in the primitive 
worship of the fiery Jehovah of the Mount, out 
of which was to grow the majestic monism of 
Israel. 

But the lightnings and thunders of the law 
passed Dan by, somehow. 


186 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


He saw not the transgressions against the 
code as violations of Nature’s own law. 

Fire burns and water drowns, he knew that. 
Even so, dishonesty wrecks, the collapse of his 
church might have told him. But it did not, 
for his defiant predatory spirit held that 
‘‘morals don’t mean anything.”’ 

Catastrophe was simply ill luck or bad strat- 
egy. 

And so, while curiously the jerry-builder 
sought again the Book of his mother after her 
death and explored the Pentateuch to find what 
he had missed, the Lord spake not to him out 
of the burning bush. Moses wielded no awe. 
Nor—in the New Book—did Jesus suffuse His 
heart with pity, bringing forth ‘‘works meet 
for repentance.’’ 

‘‘TMhou shalt not build it (the altar) of 
hewn stone: for if thou lift thy tool upon 
it, thou hast polluted it.?? Exodus! Why, 
according to that, the very church was a sac- 
rilege! 


Superstition and outworn taboos were about 
all that Mary got out of the Code. 

Although through the contrast of Dan’s dere- 
lictions and John’s integrity she had come to 


STRAIT IS THE GATE 187 


revere the Commandments, their worth, to her, 
was admixed with the dross of foolish rites 
and observances. 

Or (to change the figure) Mary could not see 
the wood because of the trees! 

The long enumerations of offenses, pains, 
penalties—the long rosters of difficult names 
that Martha had loved to roll under her tongue 
—the minute rules of this first Hebraic ‘‘ Board 
of Health’’ anteceding the quick modern ways 
of washing and disinfection—the quaint load- 
ing of the scapegoat with the people’s sins— 
the blood of the gory sacrifice—the polygamy 
and the concubinage—the law of ‘‘an eye for 
an eye and a tooth for a tooth’’: these and a 
thousand other things in the Ancient Writ 
jarred on her modern spirit and appeared 
trivial, barbaric or meaningless. Little she un- 
derstood the sublimity of Judaism; still less, 
how the austerity of Israel’s tribal faith had 
been ameliorated by her singers and prophets, 
and under the newer dispensation sweetened by 
the God-Man Jesus, who in His love for all man- 
kind died to save the world! 

... (Truly Martha, like John Bunyan, had 
lived in the fear of the great Jehovah. The 
sterner features of the law for her, as for 


188 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


many other Puritans, had obscured its healing 
STACE.) Adis 

There was no comfort for Mary in recalling 
the mother’s teachings or in poring over the 
code. Warm-hearted, yet ignorant, the girl- 
wife had not learned the diviner message of the 
Book. 

There beat the Master Heart of humanity, 
but her benumbed and groping soul was not 
aware of it. 


**Blessed are they that mourn,’’ John read 
with moist eyes, ‘‘for they shall be comforted. 
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, for they shall be filled. 
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God. Blessed are the peace-makers, for they 
shall be called the children of God. 

‘Think not that I am come to destroy the 
law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy 
but to fulfil. Let your light so shine before 
men that they may see your good works and 
glorify your Father which 1s in heaven. Love 
your enemies, bless them that curse you, do 
good to them that hate you.”’ 


Yes, Jesus fulfilled the Ten Commandments, 
but it was His Divine mission to save by sym- 
pathy and love! 


STRAIT IS THE GATE 189 


‘“‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth, where moth and rust do corrupt and 
where thieves break through and steal. * * * 
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 
where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and 
where thieves do not break through and steal; 
for where your treasure ts, there will your heart 
be also. | 

“<Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His 
righteousness, and all these things shall be 
added unto you. * * * Judge not, that ye be 
not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, 
ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye 
mete, it shall be measured to you again. * * * 
Ask, and tt shall be given you; seek, and ye 
shall find; knock, and tt shall be opened unto 
you. For every one that asketh receweth; and 
he that seeketh, findeth; and. to him that knock- 
eth it shall be opened.’’ 


Though Jesus’s call was to all, it could not 
save the obstinate or insincere. 


‘‘Hinter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is 
the gate and broad 1s the way that leadeth to 
destruction, and many there be which go in 
thereat; because strait is the gate and narrow 
is the way which leadeth unto life, and few 
there be which find tt. 

*‘Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, 
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; 


199 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


but he that doeth the will of my Father which 
as in heaven. 

‘‘Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings 
of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto 
a wise man, which built his house upon a rock. 
And the rain descended, and the floods came, 
and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, 
and wt fell not, for it was founded upon a rock.’’ 


John thought of the church job and of the 
rottenness which made it fall. As if in echo 
of his thought he read: 


‘“And every one that heareth these sayings 
of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened 
unto a foolish man, which built his house upon 
the sand. And the rain descended, and the 
floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon 
that house; and wt fell; and great was the fall 
Ofere wn nine 

“After this manner therefore pray ye—’’ 


John put down the Book, and sinking to the 
floor said the beautiful prayer which he had 
learned at his mother’s knees: that prayer 
which is the very breath of Christendom— 


“Our Father which art in heaven, 

‘*Hallowed be thy name, 

“*Thy kingdom come. 

“Thy will be done on earth, as it 1s in heaven. 


STRAIT IS THE GATE 191 


**Give us this day our daily bread, 

‘And forgive us our debis, as we forgive our 
debtors. 

‘“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver 
us from evil, 

‘*For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and 
the glory, forever, 

““Amen.’’ 


Weha wie ad 
, ‘ i ATH eH, vibe 





CHAPTHR XXV 
JOHN AND DAN 


JoHN rose from his knees. His face shone, 
and his eyes were no longer wet. 

God’s mysterious way was beyond mortal 
ken, yet His mercy endured forever. In pun- 
ishing Dan, He had taken the little mother be- 
yond Life’s troubled sphere into her eternal 
rest. She was happier there, he knew. Her 
eternal rest was eternal joy. 

What was God’s purpose to Dan and Mary 
and himself? Even the All-Creator could not 
change His handiwork. He had implanted in 
each a sovereign Will, a Self that determined 
whether to obey the divine decrees or no! It 
was theirs to work with Him or against Hin, 
to defy Him or love Him.... 

The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on 
the Mount! 

One, the inexorable law of Nature and Na- 
ture’s God! 


The other, the voice of Divine mercy... 
193 


194 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


‘‘Him that cometh unto Me... I will in no 
wise cast out.’’ . . . Would that Dan and Mary 
might seek the fount of grace.... Dan had 
sinned, but Mary had not. ... She was only 
ignorant and helpless ... John felt he would 
give his very life to aid her—another’s wife, 
yet John’s first and only love! 

Yet that was the one thing he could not pos- 
sibly do now, nor could he rightly claim an iota 
of her attention—a share of the interest that 
had once exclusively been Dan’s, but now was 
but too willing to center on himself! John did 
not fool himself. They could not come together 
without mutual love. The scene in the Tower 
had revealed each to the other. He owed it 
to both Dan and Mary to keep away. He owed 
to Mary the obligation of bringing her to the 
Good Book, of letting her see it as he saw it. 
But it was impossible— 

John fell into a brown study. The circum- 
stances surrounding his mother’s bitter death 
had stirred obscure imaginings. To the erst- 
while matter-of-fact brother now came a vision 
of Dan and Mary drifting, drifting down swift 
rapids and o’er the brink of an awful Niagara 
whilst he on the bank was tied and fast, unable 
to save! ... He woke from the nightmare. 


JOHN AND DAN 195 


... Could he save them yet? ...He would 
try! 

As if in answer to his thought there was a 
knock on the door of the carpenter shop and 
Dan appeared. 

‘‘T am a ruined man,’’ said the contractor, 
‘‘every friend I had to count on has deserted 
me after the—er—accident. 

‘<The big payment on the work was to have 
been on the very day the apse wall fell—and I 
was badly over-extended. 

‘‘The whole cursed thing is a total loss unless 
I get help. What’s the use of saying I won’t 
be such a fool with a bad ‘mix’ again? The 
fact is Daniel McTavish, Inc., hasn’t a dollar 
to re-start and stands within twenty-four hours 
of bankruptcy.”’ 

The battered Dan eyed John gloomily, hands 
in empty pockets. John could see that the trag- 
edy had unnerved him. The boyish self-conf- 
dence, the colossal nerve was gone, and he was 
the ghost of his scheming self. 

‘‘T’ve saved $5,000,’? replied John, ‘‘and 
you’re welcome to it. For Mother’s sake as 
well as your own,’’ he added, ‘‘—to make good 
and true the church that she loved. Oh, Dan,’’ 
-eried John, ‘‘why can’t you pattern after her 


196 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


now?’’? The honest fellow urged his brother 
to atone, though tardily, to her memory. But 
Dan said it was hopeless. | 

‘‘Mive thousand dollars—that won’t stave it 
off. A drop in the bucket, I tell you. You 
don’t understand. I’m involved for a good 
many thousand. Unless I get big funds, I’m 
lost! Couldn’t you—’’ 

Dan was now eyeing his brother with grow- 
ing excitement. He was wondering if the bacon 
of the McTavishes could be saved by a master 
stroke. 

‘‘Haven’t you a trust fund of the carpen- 
ters?’’ 

‘“Yes,’’ John replied slowly. 

‘“What’s the name of it?”’ 

‘‘Carpenters and Joiners’ Mutual Benefit 
Association.’’ 

“‘That’s right, and you’re the Treasurer. 
How much in Bank?”’ 

** About $45,000.”’ 

‘‘Whew! And probably as much more you 
could scare up on the mortgages and bonds you 
have out. Look here, John, if you really want 
that church built right out of respect to poor 
Mother, and me—and Mary—saved from the 


JOHN AND DAN 197, 


poorhouse (not to mention jail yawning for 
your beloved brother), you’re going to draw 
me a check for that $45,000 and follow it up 
with the other loans as you get hold of the 
money. 

‘‘Now listen to me—it’s lending to the best 
sort of security, a church. You have my word 
for it, no more ‘lean mix.’ I’ll throw out Mc- 
Quire, and you can boss the cement. As soon 
as the bad part is repaired—say, in four weeks 
—the church people will have to make their 
payment, and I will pay you back. For God’s 
sake, John,’’ his voice broke into a despairing’ 
note, ‘‘get me this money unless you want to 
see me go plumb to h—ll.’’ 

It was a terrible moment for John. 

Should he temporize, telling his brother that 
he would call a council and endeavor to per- 
suade the members to such a loan? 

Too well he knew they would instantly re- 
ject it. He himself would reject it, as the 
trustee of his thousand co-laborers. 

What? ‘To venture trust funds, sacredly 
given over in his keeping, in an over-extended 
operation of which a part had already collapsed 
in dust heaps to the ground? Of which the 


198 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


other parts which he had tested chipped off 
like loosely cohering sand, a mass of rotten- 
ness from floor to summit. 

It would be just outright stealing! 

The Kighth Commandment again! 

John loved his brother, but he had moral 
sense. He knew that the straightforward, 
downright answer was best, for never would he 
betray the trust that had been given into his 
keeping. 

‘“‘No!”’? said John. ‘‘It isn’t mine to give. 
The fund is invested in fixed ways approved 
by all, and I would be the meanest kind of a 
criminal to take 1t—”’ 

‘‘But they’d never need know,’’ cried Dan. 
‘¢You would have it back there in a month—’’ 

‘‘Yet that would be embezzlement,’’ gravely 
replied John. ‘‘Look here, Danny, you and I 
are going to have a showdown! I’ll give you 
what’s mine, [’ll slave for you without a cent 
if need be to help restore what you’ve lost, 
but I?ll not break the law of God! 

‘‘Come clean, Danny!’’ he urged. ‘‘Make a 
breast of what you’ve done, resign the job, and 
come back with me to the carpenter shop—it 
gave us a living before, and I guess it’s going 
to give us a living now.... And Mary will 


JOHN AND DAN 199 


not fail you, I know—in adversity she will be 
a helpmeet. ... You can live this thing down, 
and I’m going to help you!”’ 

But the raging Dan for reply was applying 
to him all the shrieking epithets with which he 
and Redding mocked the ‘‘holy brother’’ behind 
his back. 

‘‘Sunday-school teacher! 

‘Tin Jesus! 

‘‘ Angel Face! 

‘*You may never give me the money—lI don’t 
want your psalm-singing help, dirty mgrate 
that you are—but I’ll tell you ONE THING— 
you'll never have Mary!’’ 

The frenzied Dan, who would have killed his 
brother if he had been his physical match, 
dashed out of the house... 


eS ih 
bi? 
Mi 





CHAPTER XXVI 
DAN GOES TO SALLY 


In the presence of the august and eternal 
Law of the Ages, simply ‘‘being sorry’’ for 
oneself does not change matters. 

Behind the choking tears comes the realiza- 
tion that we who err are the fulfillers of our 
own wrongdoing. 

One cannot blot the past nor escape the 
sequel! 

And Dan—fighting with his back against the 
wall—began to realize that if you break the 
Ten Commandments, they will break you.... 
His affairs were in desperate case, without any 
means of retrieval. Their livelihood, and with 
it the beautiful home in which he now sat nerve- 
shaken, would be swept away. Horror haunted 
him, and Fear—twin harpies that transformed 
the gay, shrewd, scheming youth into a balked 
and harried loser, whipping himself now and 
again with a stiff potion.... 

Redding entered, laboring under a state of 


unusual excitement. He put into the hands 
201 


202 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 
of the Master a small magazine, the cover read- 
ing: 
THE 
STINGAREE 


We Throw Light Into 
Dark Places 


20 cents a copy. 





Dan looked at the weekly town ‘‘rag’’ 
blankly, his tortured mind not functioning. 
His look seemed to say: ‘‘I don’t ‘get’ it. Why 
bother me?”’ 

‘This little scandal sheet is hot after us!’’ 
eried Redding. ‘‘It’ll take $25,000 to buy it’’ 
—he glowered at Dan fiercely, ‘‘but it’s got to 
be done!’’ 

‘Twenty-five thousand dollars! Blackmail, 
eh??? Dan laughed maniacally. ‘‘I couldn’t 
raise two hundred and fifty!’’ said he. ‘‘Look 


DAN GOES TO SALLY 203 


at this—’’ He called Redding’s attention to 
a letter from the bank, which lay on the table 
in front of them. 

‘‘Mr. Dan McTavish, No. 642 Mason Street, 
City,’’ it read. ‘‘You have neglected to cover 
your overdrafts as promised. It is imperative 
that you call at this bank immediately and de- 
posit funds to cover shortage. Yours truly, 
C. R. Benson, Cashier.’’ 

Dan raised empty hands. 

But the other man had grabbed up THE 
STINGAREE again, rapidly opened the pages, 
and pointed with minatory finger to the black- 
mailer’s warning: 

STATE PRISON—PERHAPS 


In our next issue we will give you some inter- 
esting particulars concerning a certain Contractor, 
whose pearls were real—but whose concrete wasn’t. 





Dan gazed at it, and as the full force of the 
threatened exposure sank in, this seemed the 
end! There was no way out—save one! It 
lay in the desk drawer. It was deadly and 
sure. A small loaded weapon gleamed as Dan 
clutched it and raised it to his temple. But 
Redding was too quick for him.... 

He pounced on Dan and wrested the revolver 


204 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


from him after a struggle. ‘‘Don’t be an 
idiot!’’ warned Redding, backing off and still 
guarding the weapon. 

“‘That’s a fine way out for you!’’ he sneered, 
‘‘but you’re not going to leave me holding the 
sack, 

‘‘If I go to prison, I want company !”’ 

He mastered the other with a kind of savage 
authority. Dan was huddled in the chair, his 
head in his hands. The impulse to self-slaugh- 
ter was spent. His rescuer laid down the gun. 

Redding spoke again as he neared the exit 
and McTavish looked up. The pol. possessed 
a kind of rude power that awed and hypno- 
tized, withal there was a hint of affection in 
his pronouncement. 

‘‘Get it your own way, Son!’’ said Redding 
slowly. ‘‘Only, GET’ IT—or you and I will 
change our names to numbers!”’ 

He was gone. 

The stricken man fumbled the twicted steel 
ring with which his brother once had brace- 
leted him. He put on the ‘‘handeuffs,’’ drama- 
tizing the event Redding’s words had sug- 
gested. The jute samples met his vision, stir- 
ring up thoughts of smuggling, Sally, and the 
pearl necklace. 


DAN GOES TO SALLY 205 


The pearls! Why, they were worth $25,000! 
The rich furnishings he had given her—the 
Oriental heirlooms and antiques—aggregated 
an even greater sum. A ray of hope shot across 
the dun presentment of his future. 

Haggard, but with a new and wolfish gleam 
in his eyes, he moved about, stuffed the re- 
volver in his hip pocket, got his hat and cane, 
then paused irresolutely before the brandy de- 
canter. 

Faugh! there was need of his wits in the job 
before him. He decided to tackle it, fairly 
sober; else, she might twist him around her 
finger. "T'was a way that Sally had. 


The Chinese with a long candle-lighter was 
lighting up the beautiful candelabra in her 
Grant Avenue apartment when she glimpsed 
Dan (who couldn’t see her) admitting himself 
into the outer hall with his master key. 

In her widely décolleté, lustrously jetted black 
frock she emanated a sumptuous loveliness en- 
hanced by the white rope of gems at her throat. 
If there was aught unwholesome about her, 
the bold piquant features and the glorious fig- 
ure did not reveal it. 

Not that one could describe the Sally of this 


206 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


eventful scene as merry. One could tell by her 
swift look that the broken master of the es- 
tablishment was not likely to receive the eager 
welcome of the old glad days—the plump white 
arms around his neck and the ecstatic kisses 
of hot passion! She was cold and thoughtful! 
Something other than Dan obsessed her. Sally 
retired to her chair of state in the main living 
room. Instead of looking to the door her eyes 
sought again and again a copy of the morning 
daily on a low lacquer table beside her. She 
frowned at the headlines. 

Dan entered. Following their old rite, he 
took a seat at her feet. Their mutual greeting 
had the casualness of old lovers. But now as 
Dan talked to her, he spoke with terrible ear- 
nestness, and something was up! 

‘‘1’m in trouble, Sally,’’ Dan faced his job, 
‘and you’re a real friend. I’ve got to have 
money—and I’ve got to have it quick!”’ — 

The Chinese smiled the inscrutable smile of 
the Orient. Instead of answering immediately, 
she reached for her handbag and emptied it 
before him. Dollar bills—one, three, five— 
flattered to the floor. ‘‘Zat ees all ze money I 
have!’ said Sally, with a pretty gesture of 
nothingness. | 


DAN GOES TO SALLY 207 


But Dan was bending up to her, touching the 
rope of pearls. ‘‘I made you some pretty good 
presents—when I had the dough, didn’t I?’’ he 
said meaningly. 

Sally gently disengaged the gem-fingering 
hand. He partly stood, and made a pass as if 
to clutch them. 

‘You want them, eh,’’ said Sally, evading. 
‘‘No, I say no! Poor Sally would catch cold 
wizout her pearls!’’ At his insistence, her face 
went stern and she beat a small gong with a 
gong-stick. ... 


fe 


yD ihe 
ayy ith '4 > 
HEM ie tn 





CHAPTER XXVII 
THE WAGES OF SIN 


... THE Chinese maid appeared, a slender, 
moon-faced girl of sixteen, arrayed in Celes- 
tial silk jacket and trousers. ‘‘Geef Mistaire 
McTavish hees hat an’ cane!’’ Sally com- 
manded. She had ‘‘shipped’’ troublesome ad- 
mirers before. Dan was out in the middle of 
the room, his jaw set and his eyes ugly. As 
the servant offered the gear, he knocked the 
hat one way, the cane the other; then he strode 
to the door and bade the astonished girl get 
out! 

Her trousered legs took it on the run toward 
the inner apartment, but Dan caught her by the 
shoulder and jerked her around, terrified. She 
was facing the door now. ‘‘March!’’ said Dan 
threateningly. She gave an imploring look to 
her mistress, looked at Dan with redoubled 
terror, and dove through the door as if cata- 
pulted. Dan shut and fastened it. 

‘‘Now, listen,’? he said to Sally, fiercely. 


‘*T’ve got to have those pearls!’’ 
209 


210 THK TEN COMMANDMENTS 


He crossed the room. But if he thought her 
cowed, he was mistaken. Hor Sally had jumped 
from her chair, and, as he came, defended her- 
self behind a heavy Jap screen she tried to 
crash down upon him. He tossed it sidewise, 
and was after her. Now a chair, now a table, 
was between them. She dodged with catlike 
quickness. Once he had her, but she wriggled 
out. 

Again he caught her, and this time he made 
sure by throwing her bodily on to a settee and 
pinning her there! Bearing down upon her so 
she could not escape, Dan wrested the rope of 
pearls from Sally’s neck. 

He was on his feet in another moment, stuff- 
ing the gems in his vest pocket, then pick- 
ing up his hat and stick. He paused at the 
door. 

‘‘Now get this!’? he addressed the despoiled 
and half recumbent Sally. ‘‘I’m going to sell 
out this joint—and I’m through with you, for: 
ever !’’ 

She started up, and held out to him the news- 
paper she had been studying before his com- 
ing. 

‘‘You’re not through with me, Dan McTav- 
ish,’’ her voice had the quality of a doom, 


THK WAGES OF SIN 211 


‘‘vou’ll never be through with me, as long as 
you live!’’ 

The startling words arrested him. He 
crossed over and looked at the paper. 

The headlines were flaring and unmistakable: 


BEAUTIFUL WOMAN FROM 
MOLOKAI LEPER ISLAND 
STILL ELUDES CAPTURE. 


Dan glanced at Sally Lung. What on earth 
had that to do with them? 

Dan returned to the paper. 

‘Guarded references made at the United 
States Secret Service headquarters to-day,’’ he 
read on, ‘‘indicated that the search is still on 
for the mysterious young woman who disap- 
peared from the Leper Island of Molokai many 
months ago. 

‘‘Almost worthy of a movie plot is the back- 
ground of this particular activity of the Gov- 
ernment agents. In fact, no information is 
forthcoming except that she is beautiful—and 
clever—’’ 


Slowly Dan sensed a terror, as yet vague, 
nameless, indefinite. Sally was moving away. 
Her voice, as it floated back, linked the impend- 


212 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


ing horror with him: ‘‘Something tells me that 
you’re going to pay heavy duty on those bales 
of jute—which you sneaked in from Calcutta!’’ 

Caleutta—Sally—the girl out of the jute—the 
beautiful leper! Dan shuddered. Could it pos- 
sibly be? It would mean— Why, leprosy was 
a living death—supposing he had been in am- 
orous contact with it for months! Livid with 
horror, he sought her, the paper still in his 
hand. 

‘‘Are you the Molokai outcast?’’ 

It was Sally’s moment. Let him writhe in 
his agony—let him find out—yes or no! She 
gave him a contemptuous look as if to say: 
‘‘You will know.’’ She passed between the por- 
tiéres, pausing only to say: ‘‘Good-by, Danny !”’ 
The farewell was a mocking leer. 

McTavish looked at his hands. Already they 
seemed scarred with the dread disease. Wildly 
he thought of the evil case of his family and 
himself. Branded! By that French-Chinese 
beast! He looked again. Yes, she had fixed 
him, was his thought, but she could not get away 
with it—the slut, the Miriam, the scatterer of 
disease and death! He’d fix her. 

The maddened man pulled the pistol from 
his hip and fired through the curtains. 


THE WAGES OF SIN 213 


Following the shot came no outcry, hardly 
a groan—only a crunching sound as one by one 
the portiéres, pulled by an unseen weight, tore 
from the rings that held them up. ... As the 
last one fell to the floor, the dying Sally was 
seen on the floor beyond. 

Sally had raised herself a little with dif- 
ficulty on one arm. ... With the strange sto- 
hdity of the Oriental she addressed her final 
thrust. ‘*‘ Danny—dear—l’ll—tell—the—devil 
—you—won’t—be—far—behind!’’ The last 
words were all but inaudible. Sally fell back 
dead. 

The murderer peered over her, his gun still 
in his hand. Unseen by him, the China maid, 
peeking over the transom, had been an agonized 
spectator. The slayer, yet untouched by re- 
morse, but instantly driven back to thought of 
self, planned a way out. 

Carefully he laid the pistol within the right 
palm of his victim to evidence a suicide, then 
stepped over her prostrate form and with 
rapid, stealthy gait, let himself out the back 
stairs, and so into the street. 


Dan sought temporary nirvana in the bottle 
after reaching home, though there’s no place 


214 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


nor condition in this world where a man may 
- hide from his conscience. 

The hour was late and the house still. 

But the surging images in his brain were a 
troop of avenging Furies lashing him with scor- 
pion-like stings. 

To gloat over the recovered pearls was but 
to recall the branding of the leprous taint— 
the murder of Sally—his mother’s fate—the 
ruin of him, body and soul! 

He reached for the liquor and found the con- 
tainer empty. 

Feverishly he got the keys and opened the 
ample sideboard cellaret. 

As he crouched low to find the liquor, he saw 
John’s gift of Mother’s portrait, shoved in 
there alongside the bottles. He took it ‘out 
and contemplated the lineaments of Her who 
fondly loved him—and died through his vil- 
lainy of cement cheating. Sobbingly he spoke 
to her: 

‘Oh, Mommy—I wish I’d listened to you— 
if I could only start all over again!’’ 

Strange! The Red Commandment limned it- 
self in bright letters across her face, even as 
the Highth Commandment had formed athwart 
the Twin Tablets of his wrecked church. 


¢Hd ATAISSOd LI | LSvVad LYHLI Ad | GHONVU 
‘SJUIUIPUDUIMOTD UAT aYT *QANJIIT JUNOWDAD YT 








THE WAGES OF SIN 215 
THOU SHALT NOT KILL! 


Slowly the writing vanished. 

Dan, maniacal, reached for the first bottle, 
smashed off its top against the sideboard door. 
He took one—two—three glassfuls of the liquid, 
and his mania became a drunken frenzy. 

Escape! Why not? 

Other lands, other scenes, would harbor him. 

To h—ll with the foolish Commandments! 

Suppose he had broken them, even the Red 
One against murder! 

Drunkenly he stood and half spoke, half 
chanted. | 

‘‘Ship me somewhere 
East of Suez— 
Where the best is 
Like the worst— 
Where there ain’t no 
Ten Commandments 


And aman ¢@an raise 
A thirst.’’ 


Drunkenly his gaze rested on the day’s news- 
paper: 
BEAUTIFUL WOMAN FROM 
MOLOKAI LEPER ISLAND 
STILL ELUDES CAPTURE. 
—then it strayed to the framed cabinet of his 
wife on the mantelpiece... . 





GEA PDR RX ooVv CLL 
MaRyY! 


Kiven through the fumes of alcohol, he was 
stunned by a new fear— 

The fear of having branded her! 

Behind it came other black thoughts of event- 
ualities he had often calculated as regarding 
her if anything happened to him. John, for 
instance. He must go to her—NOW! There 
was much to be told and done. Still half mud- 
dled, he sought his wife’s bedchamber. 


She lay sleeping peacefully on the wall side 
of the great bed in the spacious chamber. 
Since her vain attempt to wrest the secret of 
Faith from the Bible, life for Mary had as- 
sumed a more somber hue—yet Dan had not 
been communicative about his troubles; ear- 
nestly she hoped the warning of the disaster 
might lead to new paths. Mary had at least 
learned loyalty and sacrifice from John. 
Blindly she had groped for his hand in the 


dark moment when Dan was alone with the dy- 
217 


218 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


ing mother; groped for it, clasped it, and been 
reassured through his granite-like strength and 
unfaltering devotion to duty. 

Dan entered the bedchamber, switching on 
the ight. He looked again at the story about 
the Molokai leper refugee, then from it to the 
sleeping form. 

He moved to the bed. The noise and the light 
woke her; she sat up and gazed astonished at 
her haggard, distraught husband. ‘‘Why— 
what—what’s the matter?’’ she faltered. 

‘‘Mary—l’ve just killed that woman!’’ said 
Dan hoarsely, edging over to her and showing 
the newspaper article, of which she just caught 
the headlines. What he was saying, the sequel 
of his confession, was so unbelievably horrible 
that she recoiled. He misunderstood her, and 
the demon of jealousy mastered his drink- 
erazed brain. 

‘‘Don’t think you’re going from me to John!”’ 
cried the ruined man. ‘‘You’re not going, I 
say, because you won’t dare! 

‘*You’re branded, the same as I am!’’—Mary 
gasped—‘‘and where I go, my wife goes with 
me!’? He would have laid hands on her, but 
she, now fully realizing the taint of his touch, 
jumped backward as from a viper. 


MARY! 219 


Backed up against the head-rest—her eyes 
and countenance frenzied with fear—she 
grasped the bedside telephone receiver and up- 
raised it as a weapon. ‘‘If you touch me,”’ 
cried Mary, ‘‘I’ll kill you!’’ She was like some 
beautiful little animal, cruelly cornered and at 
bay. 


The police had had little difficulty in trailing 
the man who committed the pistol murder in 
Grant Avenue. Not only the Chinese maid’s 
story, but the tell-tale evidences he had left, 
pointed to the late Sally’s paramour, Dan 
McTavish. A ‘‘bull’? and a uniformed man 
went to the Mason Street address. They routed 
out the butler, found Dan’s hat and stick in 
the entrance hall, and walked up the stairs, 
though the man had protested that Mrs. Mc- 
Tavish was alone and asleep. 

The detective (who was not a bad sort) 
knocked before invading her privacy. 

The distraught couple came to a dead pause 
as they heard footsteps coming up the stairs. 
‘The police!’’ whispered Dan fearfully. The 
knock almost immediately followed. 

‘‘QOnick!’? whispered Mary. ‘‘Get in bed be- 
hind me!’’ 


220 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Loyal wife, her loyalty made her forget all 
else save Dan’s being her husband and the 
police must not take him. She helped pull him 
over, then hid him behind her, under the silk 
sheets and coverlets. 

‘*Come in!’’ said Mary. 

The plain clothes man who led the others 
stopped a minute as he opened the door, his 
trained eyes looking for some sign of Dan. 
‘‘Didn’t I hear you talking to some one?’’ he 
asked. 

Mary smiled and picked up the telephone in- 
strument. ‘‘Good-by, dear!’’ she addressed a 
postulated intimate over the phone. ‘‘ We'll 
have tea to-morrow.’’ 

Mary put back the receiver, enacting per- 
fectly the réle of milady interrupted in answer- 
ing a casual call over the wire. ‘‘That was 
all,’’ she said. 

With equal cool assurance she denied Dan’s 
being about, though the hawkshaws had found 
hat and cane on the hall rack. The detective 
snooped around. He pulled out from under 
the bed Dan’s $25,000 rope of pearls, which 
had fallen to the floor during Dan’s and Mary’s 
struggle. 

Indeed, she had dropped it with a shudder 


MARY! 221 


when he, in making confession, put it in her 
hand—dropped it, the foul thing, as infected 
with the taint of Sally. 

Now, in her high resolve to save her husband, 
she pretended the pearls were hers. 

‘*So glad you found them!’’ she told the 
officer. ‘‘They had been mislaid, and I was 
looking everywhere!’’ 

The Eye of the Law was baffled in its ferret- 
ting. Mary’s quick wit, and the absolutely 
natural position of the pillow shams and bed 
quilt behind her averted suspicion. Everything 
seemed to point to the inference that Dan had 
not yet come in. The detective approached her 
again and spoke: 

‘‘T have a warrant for the arrest of your 
husband on a charge of murder!’’ He looked 
around again and resolved to make a further 
search. ‘‘I must ask you to dress—meanwhile 
we’ll wait downstairs.”’ 

Tensely Mary watched him depart and close 
the door on the privacy of her chamber. 

Tensely, as conscious of her heart-beats and 
of the warm body behind her, she counted the 
audible footsteps of the men going down the 
stairs. ... When all was quiet she threw off 
the shroud of the fugitive.... The partner 


222 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


she had shielded came forth, haggard, con- 
tripe. 28. :. 

‘‘Mary, you’ve been wonderful,’’ he said, 
‘fand I’m rotten all through. If I believed in 
a God—I’d ask Him to bless you.’’ 

His hands groped forward, hesitatingly— 
the first sign of an affection he had denied her 
for many months. He withdrew them again as 
the thought of his uncleanness smote him... 

There came the look of the hunted into his 
eyes at a sound of the movement of the officers 
below. Outdoors it was raining hard. The 
rain drops struck him through the half-open 
window that gave on a fire exit. 

That way, escape! ‘There was only one re- 
source, desperate as it seemed, that might yet 
avail. Only he must get out of this. 

‘‘T’ll try for Mexico in the motor boat,’’ said 
Dan, hoarsely. He turned at the window ledge 
in a last look at the recumbent form which lay 
quiet in the reaction of despair. 

‘‘Horget me, Mary,’’ he said, in a dreadful 
voice, ‘‘and if you can—forgive me!’’ He 
stepped out into the storm.... 

To Mary, who still lay there, there was no 
avenue of freedom, only the prospect of living 
death. ...She had embraced the leper’s 


«wl AW GNIHAG Gad NI LAD,, ‘AUVW GaNadSIHM «..“MOINO ,, 
‘SJUPIPUDUMOD UAT ay 7 ‘AANJIIY JUNOUVAD I 








a 


ae 





MARY! 223 


leman, shielded him with her own body—and 
in the act of self-sacrifice branded herself... . 
It was as Dan had said, she dared not seek a 
refuge—not even John. ... John least of all, 
whom she loved.... 

The curse of the filthy pleasure-lovers (was 
it not on her hands now?) made her an outcast. 

And then Mary visioned the lapping, lapping 
waters of the sea, converting her slow living 
death into a quick one... . The all-cleansing 
sea, Nirvana of her agony, merciful ending of 
life’s despair, how it flowed and lapped over her 
vileness as she sank down into its embrace. 
... A convulsive, short struggle, and then the 
eternal sleep! Better that way than face the 
hideousness of death-in-life.... There was 
but one human being to whom she must say 
farewell. ... Poor Mary sought a book of 
poems John long ago had given her. Within 
it was his nosegay of their old time courting. 
. . . Across one of the beautiful sonnets from 
the Portuguese she scrawled the word: Good- 
by! ... She would leave the book—with his 
faded orange blossoms—at his window as she 
sped to the tryst with the sea! 

She too was soon out into the night... . 





CHAPTER XXIX 
THE LAW INEXORABLE 


Dan MoTavisu’s craft, named the Defiance, 
was one of the swiftest craft along the West 
Coast, nor was there a more skillful skipper 
in deep-sea motoring than Dan. He had figured 
it out that a few miles’ journey to an unfre- 
quented shore would place him out of the reach 
of the officers, thence he might cruise by easy 
stages and avoiding the populated beaches to 
Mexico. The Defiance always carried a reserve 
of fuel, water and provisions for a voyage. 

He was now to put his seamanship to a su- 
preme test, for the wildness of the night chal- 
lenged man in a sort of mocking fury. 

‘‘She’s running a pretty heavy sea, Boss,’’ 
warned the old boathouse keeper, whose bunk 
was in the loft. ‘‘You’ve picked some night for 
a joy-ride!’’ He did his best to dissuade, but 
the other was adamant. 

‘‘Heave off!’’ cried Dan, jumping into the 
craft and testing the engines. The machinery 


of the ‘‘kicker’’ sang with a smooth cadence. 
225 


226 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


It throbbed, a creature of power eager to meet 
the hurricane, though already it was be-tossed 
by the waves of the usually quiet reach. 

The Defiance shot into the angrier waters of 
the bay, Dan guiding it from the wheel in the 
direction of the Golden Gate. The city lights 
from the shore—presently the winking light- 
houses—were the only clews in the night’s 
blackness till a fierce storm broke and heaven’s 
lightnings revealed the awful chasms and leap- | 
ing mountains of water across which the De- 
fiance was eareering. 

As he came into the open sea, the might of 
old Ocean whipped boat and mariner as Niag- 
ara would whip a cockleshell. It was impossi- 
ble to lay a course. Gallantly the engines re- 
sponded, but the wild, screaming blast from the 
nor’west, sweeping at a seventy-five mile gait, 
churned the waters into a hell of fury in which 
power was powerless! 

The churning hell of them bore resistlessly 
against a rockbound coast. Successive light- 
ning flashes revealed—now but a short distance 
away—outstanding crags and precipices that 
would crumple up a Leviathan. The engines 
died. Frantically the doomed mariner flung 
open the hood and tried to start them. No use! 


THE LAW INEXORABLE = 227 


Water had come in, vital parts had snapped 
under the terrific strains—the creature of 
power was silent forever! In another moment 
or two its now water-freighted corpse would 
be buried—or smashed, to splinters on the 
ledges. 

For Dan—glancing upward in the first faint 
light of that ghastly cyclonic dawn—now saw 
directly ahead and but a hundred feet away, 
two great crags like those of Sinai on which the 
divine text was written, fantastical shapes of 
the great stone Tablets of the Law! From 
their extremities extended cruel ledges, on one 
of which the Defiance was about to strike. 

Raising despairing hands, he leaped for life, 
but found Death in the maelstrom. To his 
startled dying eyes—as the Fury that had shat- 
tered him, upraised him—appeared the Ten 
Commandments across the face of Nature’s 
rude sculpture. 


J 
Thou shalt have no other GODS... 


II 


Thou shalt not make... any 
graven image. 


228 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


Til 


Thou shalt not take the name of 
thy Lord . <7. 


IV 
Remember the SABBATH DAY... 


y 
HONOR thy Father... thy 
Mother... 
VI 


THOU SHALT NOT KILL! 


VII 
Thou shalt not commit ADUL- 
FOOD Nes 
VIII 


THOU SHALT NOT STEAL! 


TX 
Thou shalt not bear FALSE 
WITNESS. 
x 


THOU SHALT NOT COVET! 


THE LAW INEXORABLE 229 


Weirdly the waters made sport of him that 
had once been Dan McTavish. Cruelly they 
smashed up the Defiance, at the splintered 
name-board of which the drowning man had 
clutched. Corpse and wrecked boat timbers, 
the sea at last tossed them both alike on a 
watery sandspit in the lee of the fury. More 
softly now the waters washed them, more 
ghastly the end appeared. 

Only Dan’s dead form lying below the great 
cliff, one arm flung over a splintered piece of 
the boat bearing its name—Defiance—only this 
remained of the once insouciant spirit that de- 
fied the decrees of God and man! He had 
broken them all—all the Commandments—then 
they had Sroken him! The eternal law of the 
ages had exacted the penalty. 





CHAPTER XxX 
LIGHT OF THE WORLD 


Awnp what of Mary? 

We left her in the small watches of the night, 
also fleeing to a tryst with the sea—the all- 
cleansing sea, in whose death-dealing embrace 
she meant to end her misery. 

For that tragic bridal were needed neither 
dress nor circumstance. Clad but in her shift 
—Neptune would clasp her; a short, choking 
struggle; then oblivion! She, the leprous out- 
east, would no longer burden existence. But 
before going she must leave the good-by keep- 
sakes for her beloved. 


The sturdy John was reading at his work- 
shop desk during the wee sma’ hours. Tiny, 
the terrier—Mary’s gift—snoozed comfortably 
atop the desk, but his doggy naps didn’t inter- 
fere with his watch and ward. ‘Tiny felt a 
peculiar proprietorship in his master.... 

Through the rain Mary staggered to the win- 


dow.... Fondly she put the good-by book 
231 


232 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


where John would see it, and placed thereupon 
the dried orange blossoms, then turned despair- 
ingly to seek the river. ... 

Within the warm, lighted shop Tiny was 
broadly awake and sniffing. His master 
watched him curiously. Tiny jumped down 
from the desk and trotted to the window. The 
hittle dog was all excitement. John got up to 
see what roused him. The carpenter could just 
distinguish a retreating figure whose outlines 
somehow were familiar. 

He ran out of the door and overtook her. 
In the semi-light he saw it was Mary! Mary 
in a night shift and hatless, Mary distrait and 
cowering. ‘‘It’s the end of everything for me, 
John!’’ she said in a strange voice. ‘‘I’m go- 
ing where I can find peace!’’ . . . And would 
have left him. ... | 

But John seized her hands to stop her. He 
put a protective arm over her rain-soaked 
shoulder, drawing her into the house. She 
shuddered. ‘‘Don’t touch me!’’ she cried. 
“‘T’m branded!’’ Though she resisted, he 
brought her in and sat her down in a low chair 
at the window betwixt the desk and the table. 
‘‘Now there,’’ said John— 





A Paramount Picture. The Ten Commandments 
CORPSE AND WRECKED BOAT—THE SEA TOSSED THEM BOTH 
ON A WATERY SAND SPIT. 





LIGHT OF THE WORLD — 233 


‘*You’re not—not branded with anything ex- 
cept FEAR!’ 

For answer she showed him her hands, point- 
ing to what she told him were white patches of 
the leprosy. The leper girl from Molokai— 
Dan’s infatuation—the murder of Sally—the 
communication of the taint to herself by con- 
tact with Dan: the story came forth brokenly 
out of the distraught brain dominated by the 
fixed resolve of suicide. 

‘‘Mary, there is only one Man who can help 
you!’’ said John, gravely. 

‘‘He gave his life to free the world from 
Fear. He is a Man you have forgotten!”’ 

The girl heard his words as if in a haze. 
Was there by any chance hope? The good 
chap was turning to the New Testament and 
finding a chapter from Matthew. 

Oh, that! As if the tiresome Book of John 
and his poor mother’s oft perusal, offered any 
surcease to-day! 

Mary laid her head on her arm wearily. 
Hope dashed, she must submit to the reading. 

‘‘Hor what is a man profited if he shall gain 
the whole world and lose his own soul?’’ The 
grave, even tones of John woke a tiny echo of 


234 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


aspiration, a vague yearning to a Power over 
and beyond the finite. 

‘¢ And behold, there came to Him a leper, and 
worshiped Him.’’ 

Mary saw the rude barn and the Divine way- 
farer, there resting. Saw the shaggy-haired 
peasants, and feminized the poor stricken leper 
in evil case like her own. “T'was a girl of golden 
beauty—all but her hands, which were veiled 
in long wrist-cloths. Her face was infinitely 
piteous and appealing. 

While the peasants drew back and muttered 
‘‘Unclean! Unclean!’’ the girl approached and 
sank to her knees in front of the Saviour. She 
bowed her head, and ventured to touch the hem 
of His garment. 

‘‘Lord—if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me 
clean !’’ 

Lo, Jesus was laying His hands on hers with 
sweet compassion. His voice (as John read) 
took on a clarion note—the majestical tones of 
a divine beneficence that yielded up life itself 
to save the world. 

“T WILL. ARISE, BE THOU MADE 
CLEAN !”? 

To Mary’s inner ear a heavenly choir seemed 
singing: 


LIGHT OF THE WORLD ~ 235 
“‘Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 

Let me hide myself in Thee! 

Let the waiter and the blood, 

From thy crimson side which flowed, 

Be of sin the double cure, 

Save from wrath and make me pure! 

Nothing in my hands I bring, 

Only to Thy cross I cling.’’ 


The hymn in her heart lifted her as the girl 
arose and stood, as it were, transfigured before 
Jesus. She had torn off her wrist-cloths. Ee- 
static, beautiful in her cleanness, she showed 
the Christ-Man her restored lily-white hands. 
... The vision faded. ... John stopped and 
laid down the book. 

Mary was standing at the window gazing at 
her own hands. Suddenly her face was suf- 
fused with joy. The day had broken and every 
object stood out in the distinct light of full 
dawn. 

‘‘Look, John,’’ cried Mary. ‘‘In the light, 
it’s gone.’? Her once scarred hands were void 
of blemish! 

‘‘Yes, Mary,’’ replied the man who had al- 
ways loved her, ‘‘in the LIGHT—it’s gone!”’ 
He smiled with a strange radiance. 

She was at his feet—his hand on her head, 


236 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 


her lovely brown head resting on her arm upon 
his knee, while her clear eyes, looking off in 
space, seemed to say that the healing of Jesus 
east out fear too with disease and opened a 
vista of unending happiness. ... 

Let us leave them there in their new-found 
happiness. For John and Mary knew that the 
tie that bound them was stronger than all the 
principalities and powers of evil. Their love 
was sealed by the Divine mercy. True to the 
Law of the Ages defied by Dan with such tragic 
penalty (of which they were soon to know), 
they were to go down the adventurous ways of 
life, hand in hand together. 


THE END 


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exciting story. 


MAN TO MAN 


Encircled with enemies, distrusted, Steve defends his rights. How he 
won his game and the girl he loved is the story filled wtth breathless 
situations. 


THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN 


Dr. Virginia Page is forced to go with the sheriff on a night journey 
into the strongholds of a lawless band. Thrills and excitement sweep the 
reader along to the end. 


JUDITH OF BLUE LAKE RANCH 


Judith Sanford part owner of a cattle ranch realizes she is being robbed 
by her foreman. How, with the help of Bud Lee, she checkmates Trevor's 


scheme makes fascinating reading. 


THE SHORT CUT 


Wayne is suspected of killing his brother after a violent quarrel. Finan 
cial complications, villains, a horse-race and beautiful Wanda, all go to make 
up a thrilling romance. 


THE JOYOUS TROUBLE MAKER 


A reporter sets up housekeeping close to Beatrice’s Ranch much to her 


chagrin. There is “sanother man” who complicates matters, but all turns 
out as it should in this tale of romance and adventure. 


SIX FEET FOUR 


Beatrice Waverly is robbed of $5,000 and suspicion fastens upon Buck 
Thornton, but she soon realizes he is not guilty. Intensely exciting, here is a 
real story of the Great Far West. 


WOLF BREED 


No Luck Drennan had grown hard through loss of faith in men he had 
trusted. A woman hater and sharp of tongue, he finds a match in Ygerne 
whose clever fencing wins the admiration and love of the ‘* Lone Wolf.” 


Grosset & DuNLAP, PUBLISHERS, New Yorke 


LLL NLT ETT NILA STC NL OE LY BR. LAT TE ETN Oe TTT TT ETS ET Re 





EMERSON HOUGH’S NOVELS 


May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Duniap’s list. 





a 





THE COVERED WAGON 


An epic story of the Great West from which the fam- 
ous picture was made. 


THE WAY OF A MAN 


A colorful romance of the pioneer West before the 
Civil War. 


THE SAGEBRUSHER 


te ener 
An Eastern girl answers a matrimonial ad. and goes out 
West in the hills of Montana to find her mate. 


THE WAY OUT 


A romance of the feud district of the Cumberland country. 


THE BROKEN GATE 


A story of broken social conventions and of a woman’s 
determination to put the past behind her. 


THE WAY TO THE WEST 

Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Kit Carson figure in 
this story of the opening of the West. 
HEART’S DESIRE 

The story of what happens when the railroad came to a 
little settlement in the far West. 
THE PURCHASE PRICE 


A story of Kentucky during the days after the American 
Revolution. 








GROSSET & DUNLAP, PusiisHers,s NEW YORK 








BOOTH TARKINGTON’S 
NOVELS 


May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grossot & Dunlap’s list. 


SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur William Brown. 


No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed 
the immortal young people of this story. Its humor is irre- 
sistible and reminiscent of the time when the reader was 
Seventeen. 


PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant. 


This is a picture of a boy’s heart, full of the lovable, hu- 
morous, tragic things which are locked secrets to most older 
folks. It is a finished, exquisite work. 


PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm. 


Like ‘‘ Penrod” and “Seventeen,” this book contains 
some remarkable phases of real boyhood and some of the best 
stories of juvenile prankishness that have ever been written. 


THE TURMOIL. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers. 


Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who re- 
volts against his father’s plans for him to be a servitor of 
big business. The love of a fine girl turns Bibb’s life from 
failure to success. 


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece. 


A story of love and politics,—more especially a picture of 
@ country editor’s life in Indiana, but the charm of the book 
lies in the love interest. 


THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. 


The “ Flirt,”’ the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl’s 
engagement, drives one man to suicide, causes the murder 
of another, leads ane ‘her to lose his fortune, and in the end 
marries a stupid «ud unpromising suitor, leaving the really 
worthy one to marry her sister. 





Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 


Grosset & DuNLAP, PUBLISHERS, New York 





— ——_ 














KATHLEEN NORRIS’ STORIES 


Bay be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Duniap’s list 





SISTERS. Frontispiece by Frank Street. 


The California Redwoods furnish the background for this 
beautiful story of sisterly devotion and sacrifice, 


POOR, DEAR, MARGARET KIRBY. 


Frontispiece by George Gibbs. 


A collection of delightful stories, including ‘* Bridging the 
Years” and ‘‘The Tide-Marsh.’’ This story is now shown in 
moving pictures, 


JOSSELYN’S WIFE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. 


The story of a beautiful woman who fought a bitter fight tor 
happiness and love. 


MARTIE, THE UNCONQUERED. 
Illustrated by Charles E. Chambers. 

The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions. 
THE HEART OF RACHAEL, 


Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. 


An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come 
with a second marriage. 


THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. 
Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. 


A sympathetic portrayal of the quest of a normal girl, obscure 
and lonely, for the happiness of life. 


SATURDAY’S CHILD. Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes, 


Can a girl, born in rather sordid conditions, lift herself through 
g@heer determination to the better things for which her soul 
hungered ? 


MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. 


A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background 
of every girl’s life, ‘and some dreams which came true. 





Ask for Complete free list of G. G D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction 





Grosser & Duntap, PUBLISHERS, New York 
Ee 





B. M. BOWER’S NOVELS 


May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap’s list. 


CASEY RYAN 
CHIP OF THE FLYING U 
COW-COUNTRY 

FLYING U RANCH | 

FLYING U’S LAST STAND, THE 
GOOD INDIAN 

GRINGOS, THE 

HAPPY FAMILY, THE 

HER PRAIRIE KNIGHT 
HERITAGE OF THE SIOUX, THE 
LONG SHADOW, THE 
LONESOME TRAIL, THE 
LOOKOUT MAN, THE 

LURE OF THE DIM TRAILS, THE 
PHANTOM HERD, THE 

QUIRT, THE 

RANGE DWELLERS, THE 

RIM O’ THE WORLD 

SKYRIDER 

STARR OF THE DESERT 
THUNDER BIRD, THE 

TRAIL OF THE WHITE MULE, THE 
UPHILL CLIMB, THE 


GrosseT & Duniap, PusLisHeRs, NEw YORK 





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